# Arize Phoenix vs EvalGate: which tests AI agents better?

Arize Phoenix is a compelling open-source choice for local agent traces, inspection and evaluation. EvalGate is worth using when the primary goal is an approved passing baseline and a CI gate that blocks known behavioral regressions.

## Choose Arize Phoenix when
Open-source tracing, telemetry exploration and local agent debugging.

## Choose EvalGate when
Approved behavior checks and evidence-backed release decisions.

## Differentiation
- EvalGate: An observable, CI-executable gate with explicit protected cases.
- Arize Phoenix: Self-hostable trace inspection and OpenTelemetry ecosystem.

## Pricing
Phoenix is open source; Arize AX is a separate hosted product with its own pricing.
EvalGate pricing: https://www.evalgate.com/pricing

## Limitations
EvalGate is not a universal replacement for an observability backend.

## Migration
Preserve Phoenix or OTLP instrumentation; create reviewable EvalGate cases for failure scenarios you want to protect.

## Verified example
https://github.com/evalgate/refund-agent-demo

## Official competitor documentation
https://arize.com/phoenix/

Last substantive review: October 14, 2026.