Prompt flow
Microsoft toolkit for building, evaluating, tracing, and deploying LLM application flows.
About
Microsoft built Prompt flow to carry LLM applications from prototype to production as executable flows: directed graphs that wire prompts, Python functions, and model calls into units that can be run, tested, and versioned like ordinary code. The pip-installable suite, promptflow plus promptflow-tools on Python 3.9 to 3.11, includes a local test runner, batch execution over datasets, built-in and custom evaluation flows for scoring output quality, and tracing that records every model interaction for debugging. A VS Code extension adds a visual flow designer, and the CLI covers scaffolding, testing, and deployment paths that package flows as Docker images or serve them locally. The same flow format runs inside Azure AI Foundry, which drives much of its enterprise adoption, but nothing requires Azure and flows execute against any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, hosted or local. MIT licensed with about 11,000 GitHub stars, it remains one of the more complete open answers to systematic prompt testing, evaluation, and LLMOps workflow discipline.
Should you use Prompt flow?
Pick it when
Pick this only if you already run Prompt flow DAGs and need their batch runs, evaluation flows, and tracing to keep working while you plan a migration; Microsoft no longer recommends it for new development.
Look elsewhere when
Microsoft ended feature work in April 2026 and retires Prompt flow in Foundry, Azure ML, and the VS Code extensions on April 20, 2027, pointing to Microsoft Agent Framework. For evaluation alone, promptfoo or DeepEval are lighter.
Alternatives to Prompt flow
- Promptfoo
Declarative test cases and red-teaming from a CLI in CI; lighter for comparing prompts and models, but it does not structure your app as flows.
- DeepEval
Pytest-style metrics and synthetic test data for existing Python code; no flow authoring or deployment packaging, only evaluation.
- Langfuse
Tracing, prompt management, and evals for any app through an SDK or decorator, self-hosted in Docker, without reshaping your code into flows.
- Microsoft Agent Framework
Microsoft's named migration target, with graph-based workflows, a DevUI, and OpenTelemetry tracing; actively developed, but an agent framework rather than an eval suite.
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Details
- Category
- AI Frameworks & Libraries
- Price
- Free
- Platform
- Local/Desktop
- Difficulty
- Intermediate (3/5)
- License
- MIT
- Added
- Jul 29, 2026