Practical overview
When it fits
Use Prompttools during prompt development or model selection when you want to run structured comparisons in code, notebooks or a playground, or investigate vector-database retrieval behavior.
Who it is for
- Developers comparing prompt variants or model parameters.
- Teams building repeatable LLM evaluation workflows in Python or notebooks.
- Practitioners examining retrieval behavior across supported vector databases.
Documented uses
- Compare outputs across model and prompt choices.
- Run and visualize repeatable prompt experiments.
- Evaluate retrieval accuracy in supported vector databases.
- Export experiment results as CSV, JSON, LoRA JSON or to MongoDB.
Requirements & limits
The project is open source under the Apache-2.0 license and documents self-hosted use as well as a hosted Streamlit playground. The hosted playground does not support LlamaCpp.
- The project identifies Python as its primary language and offers code, Jupyter notebook and Streamlit playground interfaces.
- The integration list distinguishes supported options from those in progress or exploratory; Ollama and Epsilla are in progress, while Milvus and LlamaIndex are exploratory.
- The README says LLM calls execute from the user's machine directly to providers, and that API keys and inputs and outputs are not stored on a server.
- The README also describes usage-error reporting to Sentry and an opt-out through the SENTRY_OPT_OUT environment variable.
- Experiment results can be exported to CSV, JSON, LoRA JSON or MongoDB.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Run the OpenAI chat experiment notebook
Open the repository's documented OpenAI chat experiment notebook locally.
Before you start
- Python environment with pip
- Git
- Jupyter Notebook
- Access credentials for the OpenAI model used by the notebook
Steps
Install Prompttools with pip install prompttools.
Clone the Prompttools repository from GitHub.
Change into the repository directory and open examples/notebooks/OpenAIChatExperiment.ipynb with Jupyter Notebook.
Expected outcome
The notebook provides the documented local starting point for an OpenAI chat experiment; the README's example varies model choices and temperature, then runs and visualizes the experiment.
Guide limitations
- The README does not specify credential configuration steps.
- The notebook route is an example workflow, not a guarantee that a particular model or API account will be available.
Launch the local Streamlit playground
Set up and start Prompttools' playground from the cloned repository.
Before you start
- Python environment with pip
- Git
- Jupyter Notebook, if it is not already installed
Steps
Install notebook if needed, then install Prompttools using pip.
Clone the Prompttools repository.
From the repository directory, run streamlit run prompttools/playground/playground.py.
Expected outcome
The documented command starts the local Streamlit playground for interacting with Prompttools.
Guide limitations
- The README does not detail playground-specific model credential setup.
- The README notes that the hosted playground does not support LlamaCpp; that stated limitation applies to the hosted version.
Compare options for Vector search
These projects document a common task and share a project role. This is a source-based comparison, not an execution benchmark or a guarantee of interchangeability.
| Project | Documented purpose | Platform | Access and requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prompttools | Compare outputs across model and prompt choices. | CLI, Cloud, Self-hosted | The project is open source under the Apache-2.0 license and documents self-hosted use as well as a hosted Streamlit playground. The hosted playground does not support LlamaCpp. |
| Smallevals | Generate synthetic questions from chunks or documents for retrieval evaluation. | Linux, macOS, Self-hosted, Windows | Smallevals is presented as a public Python repository and documents installation with pip. The repository information supplied does not identify a license. |
| MyScale Vector Database Benchmark | Measure queries per second for vector search. | CLI |
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 10 October 2026
- Original website title
- hegelai/prompttools · Official homepage title · retained in its source language

