Compare Architectures
Side-by-side: use case, requirements, latency, cost, strengths, weaknesses, failure modes, example — and when to choose each.
Workflow vs AgentSingle agent vs Multi-agentRAG vs Fine-tuningVector search vs BM25Function calling vs MCPDirect API integration vs MCPPlan-then-execute vs ReActShort-term memory vs Long-term memoryLLM-as-judge vs Deterministic evaluatorsHuman-in-the-loop vs Human-on-the-loopSupervisor vs PipelinePrompt caching vs Semantic cachingRouter vs SupervisorFramework vs No framework
| Human-in-the-loop | Human-on-the-loop | |
|---|---|---|
| Use case | Irreversible or high-risk actions need approval before execution | Reversible actions run autonomously with monitoring and override |
| Requirements | Pause / resume, approval UI, persisted state | Dashboards, alerts, audit log, an undo path |
| Latency | Blocked until a human responds: minutes to days | No blocking; humans react after the fact |
| Cost | Human time on every gated action | Human time only on exceptions |
| Strengths | Nothing dangerous happens unreviewed | Throughput; humans focus on anomalies |
| Weaknesses | Approval fatigue; humans rubber-stamp | Damage happens before anyone looks |
| Failure modes | Backlog of pending approvals stalls the system | Alert ignored; bad action already propagated |
| Example | Refund over 500 EUR; deleting a production record | Auto-tagging tickets with a weekly review of samples |
| Choose this when | Choose human-in-the-loop when an action is irreversible, costly, or legally sensitive. | Choose human-on-the-loop when actions are reversible and volume makes per-action review impractical. |