Alternatives to Helicone
Open-source observability and monitoring for LLM applications.
Helicone ranks #8 of 8 in AI evaluation platforms, with an Alt Score of 76. It is licensed under Apache License 2.0, open source with paid hosting from $79/month and available on the web. 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Helicone is an open-source LLM observability platform offering request logging, cost and token tracking, caching, prompt management, and evaluations via a proxy or async SDK.
AI engineering teams who need observability for LLM applications and agents, from solo developers on the free Hobby cloud tier to enterprises wanting a self-hosted, SOC 2/GDPR-compliant deployment. It integrates via a proxy/AI Gateway and SDKs with OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Vercel AI SDK and 100+ other providers and frameworks.
A proxy-based LLM observability and gateway platform covering request tracing and sessions, cost/latency/token tracking, alerts for error rates and cost spikes, prompt management with a playground and version history, dataset curation for fine-tuning and evaluation, and score reporting for evaluation results computed by external frameworks (RAGAS, LangSmith, custom judges). The core is Apache-2.0 licensed and self-hostable via Docker, Kubernetes/Helm, or manual install.
Developers route LLM calls through Helicone's AI Gateway or add a one-line proxy/SDK integration so every request and response is logged automatically. Teams then inspect traces, costs, and latency in the dashboard, manage and deploy prompt versions through the gateway without code changes, curate request logs into datasets, and push evaluation scores from their own eval framework back to Helicone for centralized reporting — running either on Helicone's hosted cloud or a self-hosted instance.
Where Helicone stands out
Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.
Why people leave Helicone
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Opik is an open-source LLM evaluation platform from Comet for tracing, evaluating, and monitoring LLM applications, with datasets, LLM-as-judge metrics, and a prompt playground.
Langfuse is an open-source LLM engineering platform providing tracing, prompt management, evaluations, datasets, and analytics for LLM applications; self-hostable or cloud.
Phoenix is an open-source observability and evaluation library from Arize AI for tracing, evaluating, and troubleshooting LLM applications, built on OpenTelemetry.
Braintrust is an evaluation and observability platform for AI products, with datasets, LLM-as-judge scorers, prompt playground, and production logging.
HoneyHive is an AI evaluation and observability platform for testing, tracing, and monitoring LLM applications, with datasets, LLM-as-judge evaluators, and human review.
LangSmith is a platform for debugging, testing, evaluating, and monitoring LLM applications, with tracing, datasets, and LLM-as-judge evaluations.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the AI evaluation platforms checklist (17 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| AI evaluation platforms checklist | Helicone | Comet Opik | Langfuse | Arize Phoenix | Braintrust | HoneyHive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| Self-hostable | ||||||
| Tracing / observability | ||||||
| Prompt playground & versioning | ||||||
| Dataset management | ||||||
| LLM-as-judge evals | ||||||
| Human annotation / review | ||||||
| Online (production) monitoring | ||||||
| A/B experiments | ||||||
| CI / regression testing | ||||||
| Cost & token tracking | ||||||
| Framework-agnostic SDK | ||||||
| Free tier |
Every fact and feature listed for Helicone is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License Apache License 2.0 verified 2026-07-17
Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004 ... Copyright 2023 Helicone Inc
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Helicone/helicone/main/LICENSE -
Pricing model OSS + paid hosting verified 2026-07-17
Core platform is Apache-2.0 and self-hostable for free (Docker/Kubernetes/manual); the hosted SaaS has a free Hobby tier plus paid usage-based Pro/Team/Enterprise tiers.
Simple, predictable pricing Built to scale with you. Only pay for what you use.
https://www.helicone.ai/pricing -
Starts at $79/month verified 2026-07-17
Pro POPULAR $79 per month For growing teams.
https://www.helicone.ai/pricing -
Platforms Web verified 2026-07-17
Helicone is a web dashboard + proxy/gateway + SDKs (self-hosted or SaaS); no native desktop or mobile clients.
Log In
https://www.helicone.ai/pricing -
Status active verified 2026-07-17
GitHub API metadata (not a rendered page) shows a push 12 days before research date and the repo is not archived; docs also reference an active changelog at helicone.ai/changelog.
pushed_at: 2026-07-05T05:55:34Z, archived: false
https://api.github.com/repos/Helicone/helicone -
Open source Yes verified 2026-07-17
Apache License, Version 2.0
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Helicone/helicone/main/LICENSE -
Self-hostable Yes verified 2026-07-17
Deploy your own instance of Helicone using your preferred method. Choose the deployment option that best fits your infrastructure and scalability needs.
https://docs.helicone.ai/getting-started/self-host/overview -
Tracing / observability Yes verified 2026-07-17
Observe: Inspect and debug traces & sessions for agents, chatbots, document processing pipelines, and more
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Helicone/helicone/main/README.md -
Prompt playground & versioning Yes verified 2026-07-17
Build a prompt in the Playground. Save any prompt with clear commit histories and tags.
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/advanced-usage/prompts/overview -
Dataset management Yes verified 2026-07-17
Curate and export LLM request/response data for fine-tuning, evaluation, and analysis
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/datasets -
LLM-as-judge evals No verified 2026-07-17
Helicone only ingests/reports scores computed by external eval frameworks (RAGAS, LangSmith, custom judges); it does not run LLM-as-judge evaluations itself. The Experiments feature, which previously
Helicone doesn't run evaluations for you - we're not an evaluation framework. Instead, we provide a centralized location to report and analyze evaluation results from any framework
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/advanced-usage/scores -
Human annotation / review Partial verified 2026-07-17
Supports manual per-request scoring/annotation in the dashboard and end-user thumbs-up/down feedback capture, but there is no dedicated multi-annotator review-queue workflow.
You can also add scores directly in the Helicone dashboard on the request details page. This is useful for manual evaluation or quick testing.
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/advanced-usage/scores -
Online (production) monitoring Yes verified 2026-07-17
Helicone Alerts let you monitor error rates and costs on LLM requests to catch issues before they impact users.
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/alerts -
A/B experiments No verified 2026-07-17
Experiments (the spreadsheet-like prompt A/B comparison tool) is deprecated/removed as of Sept 2025, well before the research date; the page is no longer indexed in the current docs sitemap.
We are deprecating the Experiments feature and it will be removed from the platform on September 1st, 2025.
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/experiments -
CI / regression testing No verified 2026-07-17
The only feature that offered prompt-regression prevention ('Prevent regression: Prompt engineering is iterative. Engineers want to prevent regression with each prompt change.') was Experiments, now d
We are deprecating the Experiments feature and it will be removed from the platform on September 1st, 2025.
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/experiments -
Cost & token tracking Yes verified 2026-07-17
Total Tokens | Monitor combined prompt and completion token usage ... Cost | Monitor spending to prevent budget overruns
https://docs.helicone.ai/features/alerts -
Framework-agnostic SDK Yes verified 2026-07-17
Helicone AI Gateway integrates with most AI frameworks and development tools to give you access to 100+ LLM providers and top tier observability.
https://docs.helicone.ai/gateway/integrations/overview -
Free tier Yes verified 2026-07-17
Hobby Free Kickstart your AI project. 10,000 free requests 1 GB storage 1 seat, 1 organization
https://www.helicone.ai/pricing
FAQ
Yes. Arize Phoenix, Braintrust and HoneyHive have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
Comet Opik, Langfuse and Arize Phoenix — every license claim links its source.