Staxly

LangChain vs Groq

The framework for building LLM apps — chains, agents, RAG, LangGraph
vs. Fastest LLM inference — LPU-powered (300-1000+ tokens/sec)

LangChain websiteGroq website

Pricing tiers

LangChain

OSS (MIT)
MIT-licensed core library. Free forever. Python + JS.
$0 base (usage-based)
LangSmith (see entry)
Observability layer — Developer free, Plus $39/seat. Separate platform.
$0 base (usage-based)
LangGraph Platform — Developer
Deploy LangGraph agents as an API. Free tier — limited execution minutes.
$0 base (usage-based)
LangGraph Platform — Plus
$39/seat/mo (tied to LangSmith Plus). More execution credit. Production features.
$39/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Self-host, dedicated support, SSO.
Custom
LangChain website

Groq

Free Tier
Generous free RPM / TPM by model. Great for dev + small apps.
Free
On-Demand (paid)
Pay-as-you-go per token. OpenAI-compatible API, no infrastructure to manage.
$0 base (usage-based)
Developer Tier
Higher rate limits for production apps.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated capacity, SLA, on-prem option.
Custom
Groq website

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing oss on LangChain vs free-tier on Groq.

MetricLangChainGroq
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

LangChain · 18 features

  • AgentsTool-using agents with reasoning loops.
  • Chains (LCEL)LangChain Expression Language — pipe primitives into chains.
  • Checkpointers (LangGraph)Persist agent state to SQL, Mongo, Redis, Postgres.
  • Document Loaders150+ loaders for PDF, HTML, Notion, Google Drive, S3, GitHub, etc.
  • Human-in-the-loopPause agent for approval, then resume.
  • LangGraphStateful graph-based agent runtime. Durable, replayable, human-in-the-loop.
  • LangGraph PlatformManaged hosting for LangGraph agents with state persistence.
  • LangGraph StudioDesktop IDE for debugging agent graphs.
  • LangServeDeploy chains as FastAPI endpoints.
  • MemoryBuffer, summary, entity, vector memory stores.
  • Output ParsersStructured JSON, Pydantic schemas, function calling.
  • Prompt TemplatesTemplating + partial filling + output parsers.
  • RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)Standard patterns + 50+ retrievers.
  • StreamingFirst-class streaming at every layer.
  • SubgraphsCompose agent graphs hierarchically.
  • Text SplittersRecursive, token, semantic splitters for chunking.
  • Tools400+ pre-built tools (web search, code, databases, APIs).
  • Vector Store Integrations60+ vector DBs (Pinecone, Chroma, Weaviate, PGVector, Qdrant, Milvus).

Groq · 7 features

  • Audio TranscriptionWhisper endpoint.
  • Batch API50% discount.
  • Chat Completions (OpenAI-compat)Standard /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
  • Function Calling
  • JSON ModeEnforce JSON output format.
  • Prompt Caching50% discount on cached input.
  • StreamingSSE streaming for chat.

Developer interfaces

KindLangChainGroq
SDK@langchain/core (Node), langchain (Python), langgraph (JS), langgraph (Python), LangServegroq-python, groq-sdk (Node)
RESTLangGraph PlatformGroq API (OpenAI-compat)
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to LangChain and Groq are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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