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Compare 9 prompt engineering tools
To get the most out of generative AI models, developers and other users rely on prompt engineering techniques to achieve their desired output. Explore nine tools that can help.
For generative AI platforms to be effective, users must create the right prompt. While this might seem simple, prompt creation can quickly grow complex.
Producing a specific response from an AI model often requires a high level of detail and precision. Prompt engineering is a technique used to guide large language models and other generative AI tools to achieve a desired output. The practice can require elements of logic, coding and art; simply rephrasing a question can lead an LLM to produce a completely different response.
As a specialized AI skill or job role, prompt engineering focuses on improving model behavior and enhancing output. Best practices for prompt engineering often include experimentation and testing different methods of phrasing instructions or questions.
To eliminate the trial and error of experimentation, developers can use prompt engineering tools to refine and expedite the prompt creation process. These tools can help developers refine their prompt creation skills and build better AI-driven services.
Prompt engineering tools can be anything from a simple open source GitHub repository to a full-fledged paid application. Many are tailored to specific areas, such as storing prompt templates or using techniques like chain-of-thought prompting.
Prompt engineering tools
Based on extensive research into the prompt engineering tools market, TechTarget editors identified nine leading options. Our research into this emerging topic included analyzing information from independent technical resources, user reviews, and product webpages and documentation.
Tools are listed in alphabetical order.
1. Agenta
Agenta is an open source platform that provides resources for experimenting with, evaluating and deploying LLMs. Agenta enables developers to test multiple versions of prompts, parameters and strategies to produce their desired outcome.
With Agenta, users define the parameters and prompts they want to experiment with and can iteratively test new variants. Users host the platform on their infrastructure and can collaborate with domain experts for guidance and feedback. In addition, developers can test, compare and save prompt variations; work using the framework, library or model of their choice; and deploy LLMs as APIs when ready.
Agenta is available on GitHub for free.
2. LangChain
Although LangChain is known for simplifying and streamlining the LLM application development process as a whole, it can also help with prompt management. The open source framework provides premade prompt templates in the form of structured text, written in Python. These templates include instructions, few-shot examples and context questions for specific tasks.
Prompts can vary in specificity depending on the user's needs. Custom prompt templates, such as specific dynamic instructions, are also available if the default prompt templates do not meet a user's needs.
LangChain is available on GitHub for free. LangChain's developers also offer LangSmith, a platform for building production LLM applications. LangSmith has several tiers: a free Developer tier; a Plus tier, at $39 per user, per month; and Enterprise and Startup tiers, which use a custom pricing model.
3. PromptAppGPT
PromptAppGPT is a low-code, prompt-based framework for application development. The framework is based on OpenAI models and includes text generation, image generation, plugin extensions and automatic UI generation.
The framework enables natural language application development based on ChatGPT, so users can create applications like AutoGPT with minimal prompts. PromptAppGPT provides execution components, such as web and image search, web crawling, and JavaScript code execution.
PromptAppGPT is available on GitHub for free.
4. Prompt Engine
Prompt Engine is an open source tool for developing and maintaining LLM prompts. Written primarily in TypeScript, Prompt Engine is an npm utility library that helps users create and store prompts for their AI models. It features a code engine, which turns natural language prompts into code, and a chat engine, for scenarios where both the user and model are using natural language.
Prompt Engine also manages prompt overflow by removing the oldest dialogue interactions. Although Prompt Engine's default programming language is JavaScript, users can create prompts for different languages with specific commands. Users can integrate generated prompts with their LLM of choice.
Prompt Engine is available on GitHub for free.
5. PromptLayer
PromptLayer is a comprehensive prompt engineering application for creating, testing, deploying and monitoring prompts. The tool includes a prompt registry, which lets users create, version and retrieve prompts; batch testing; advanced search for existing requests; and LLM analytics. Other features include API request logging, metadata tracking and project collaboration capabilities.
While its prompt template is model-agnostic, PromptLayer primarily focuses on support for OpenAI models. Use with other major models might require custom workarounds and integrations. The tool -- available in Python and JavaScript or as a REST API -- can integrate with existing LLM projects and tools like LangChain.
PromptLayer's Free tier includes seven days of log retention and up to 5,000 requests per month. Its Pro plan, designed for small teams, costs $50 per user, per month, and includes unlimited log retention, up to 100,000 requests, advanced features and collaboration tools. Its Enterprise plan, designed for larger teams and organizations, has custom pricing and includes additional features like Slack support channels and SOC 2 compliance.
6. Promptmetheus
Promptmetheus is an integrated development environment (IDE) that focuses on complex LLM prompt creation. Prompts are broken down into data and text blocks that users can rearrange, combine and test to get their desired outcome.
Promptmetheus stores prompt design process history and estimates how much a prompt will cost to run. The tool provides an AI programming interface that executes prompts on a remote server and acts as the intermediary between AI platforms and LLMs.
The platform supports a wide array of LLMs and inference APIs, including models from Anthropic, Cohere, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Perplexity, Groq, Deep Infra and AI21 Labs.
Promptmetheus provides a free playground that includes Prompt IDE, local data storage, stats and insights, and the ability to export and import data. However, it currently works only with OpenAI models.
In addition to the free version, Promptmetheus has an individual tier for $29 per month and a team tier for $49 per user, per month, both offering seven-day free trials. Users can also join a waitlist for a yet-to-be-released pro tier, priced at $99 per user, per month.
7. PromptPerfect
PromptPerfect works to improve prompt quality to help users achieve consistent results from LLMs. Developers can deploy prompts to PromptPerfect's server and use the prompts in their own applications via an API.
Users can input the prompt they are working on and adjust settings such as prompt length, output quality and number of iterations. With these constraints in place, the tool then produces a prompt, which users can edit. Other features include an AI model "battleground" for comparing different models' outputs and a prompt-as-a-service option that enables developers to deploy prompts as REST API services.
PromptPerfect is a third-party plugin that works with text generation models such as ChatGPT, Claude and Llama, as well as image models such as Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. But PromptPerfect can only be used with paid versions of ChatGPT.
In addition to a free Standard tier, PromptPerfect offers a Pro tier, priced at $19.99 per month, and a Pro Max tier, priced at $99.99 per month. Teams interested in the Enterprise tier must contact sales for pricing information. The product uses a per-day credit system for each of its five main features, with each tier including request volume thresholds.
8. PromptSource
PromptSource is a toolkit for creating, sharing and using natural language prompts. It is a prompt engineering IDE that uses an iterative development process to create natural language prompts.
PromptSource contains around 2,000 English prompts, available through PromptSource's API. For users looking to create prompts, PromptSource supplies a web-based GUI so that developers can write prompts in a templating language and check the prompts. Templates in PromptSource are written in Jinja, a templating programming language.
PromptSource is available on GitHub for free.
9. ThoughtSource
ThoughtSource is an open source framework for chain-of-thought prompting, a prompt engineering technique that asks an LLM to mimic human reasoning processes when producing outputs. The goal of chain-of-thought prompting is to increase a model's trustworthiness in decision-making by making visible how it reached a particular conclusion.
ThoughtSource's data loaders let users access data sets in a standardized chain-of-thought format. Data sets include general, scientific and medical question-answering, among others. The tool also offers an annotator feature to highlight similarities between reasoning chains.
The tool is primarily written in Python and accessed via Jupyter notebooks. It can generate reasoning chains with OpenAI models as well as models on the Hugging Face hub.
ThoughtSource is available on GitHub for free.
Editor's note: This article was originally written by Emily Foster in November 2023. Olivia Wisbey updated and expanded it in October 2024 to cover additional tools and reflect product updates since initial publication.
Olivia Wisbey is the associate site editor for TechTarget Enterprise AI. She graduated with bachelor's degrees in English literature and political science from Colgate University, where she served as a peer writing consultant at the university's Writing and Speaking Center.
Emily Foster formerly covered AI and machine learning as the associate site editor for TechTarget Enterprise AI.
