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Certiv vs Agent Observability

Observability tools help developers debug. Certiv helps security teams govern. Different audience, different data.

In short

Agent observability tools (LangSmith, Langfuse, Helicone, Phoenix) require SDK instrumentation in the app and serve developers debugging agent behavior. Certiv runs on the endpoint, sees every agent the org runs — including shadow ones — and enforces policy at runtime.

Capability
Certiv
Agent Observability
Records agent reasoning, prompts, tool calls
Yes — at runtime, on the endpoint
Yes — via app-side SDK instrumentation
Works without app code changes
Yes — single endpoint install
No — requires per-app SDK integration
Sees shadow / unsanctioned agents
Yes — discovers what nobody told you about
No — only sees apps that instrumented themselves
Pre-execution policy enforcement
Yes — blocks before the action runs
No — observability records, does not enforce
Debug agent behavior during development
Partial — production-leaning
Yes — its core competency
Trace + span dashboards for app developers
No — different audience
Yes — strong fit

Agent observability has been one of the fastest-growing tool categories of 2025 — and rightly so. Developers building agents need to see prompts, replay sessions, compare model outputs, and tune evals. Tools like LangSmith, Langfuse, Helicone, Phoenix, and Braintrust all serve this audience well. They're great for the app team.

Security and IT have a different problem. They need to know about agents nobody told them about — the SaaS copilot a marketer enabled, the IDE agent a developer installed, the custom internal tool that skipped review. Those agents won't have the SDK installed. A security platform that can only see what was instrumented misses the ones that matter most.

Certiv sees agents from the endpoint, independent of any application SDK. The visibility is automatic; the audience is security; the action is enforcement, not just recording. Observability tools and Certiv often run side by side in the same organization — one for the developer experience, one for the runtime assurance the security team is accountable for.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Expand to view common questions.

Is Certiv competing with LangSmith / Langfuse / Helicone / Phoenix?
No. Those are agent-development observability tools — app developers instrument their agents with an SDK to debug prompts, replay sessions, and analyze model performance. Certiv is a security platform for IT and security teams — it sees every agent on every endpoint, including the ones nobody instrumented, and can enforce policy. Different buyer, different problem.
Can't observability tools also enforce policy?
Some are starting to add guardrails, but they fundamentally see only what the app developer chose to instrument. If the app didn't add the SDK, the tool has zero visibility. Certiv doesn't depend on the app — it sees agents from the endpoint, so shadow AI and uninstrumented agents are visible whether or not anyone planned for them.
Should we use both?
Often, yes. Agent observability is the right tool for developers iterating on prompts and agent designs in pre-production. Certiv is the right tool for security and IT to govern what's actually running in production across the whole org. The two have different consumers and produce complementary data.

Keep reading

Our approach

Why endpoint observation beats SDK instrumentation when the question is coverage.

See the product

How Certiv discovers, understands, controls, and protects agents at runtime.

For security teams

How CISOs are using Certiv to govern agents at enterprise scale.