Helicone vs Langfuse

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Cheaper paid plan: Langfuse — $29/mo vs $79/mo for Helicone
Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Both have one
Best fit: Helicone: Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes · Langfuse: Engineering teams running LLM apps or agents in production who need traces and cost tracking
Trust score: About even — Helicone 80, Langfuse 80

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

HeliconeOpen-source LLM observability and AI gateway that logs every request, tracks cost and latency, caches and fails over between providers.

LangfuseOpen-source LLM engineering platform for tracing agents, versioning prompts, running evals and tracking cost, hosted or self-hosted.

Side by side

Fact	Helicone	Langfuse
Category	LLM Observability & Evaluation	LLM Observability & Evaluation
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$79/mo	$29/mo
Public API	Yes	Yes
Trust score	80 / 100	80 / 100
Platforms	Web, API	Web, API
Company	Helicone, Inc.	Langfuse GmbH
Launched	2023	2023
Last verified	Oct 29, 2026	Oct 29, 2026

What our research says

Helicone

Helicone is a quick way to get request logs, cost tracking and caching on top of LLM calls with a one-line base-URL change, and the open-source code means you can run it yourself. Its ownership has changed twice in 2026 and the public changelog has been quiet since late 2025, so teams choosing a long-term observability platform should weigh that against more actively developed options.

Pros

Proxy or gateway integration takes one line of configuration
Free tier with 10,000 requests a month and an open-source self-host option
Built-in caching, rate limits and automatic provider fallbacks
Session view for multi-step agent traces and HQL for custom queries

Cons

Free plan keeps data for only 7 days and Pro for one month
Usage-based charges on top of the plan fee make bills harder to predict
Ownership uncertainty: acquired by Mintlify in March 2026, then announced as separated again with no details

Langfuse

Langfuse is a strong default for teams that want tracing, prompt versioning and evaluations in one open-source tool, with the option to keep data on their own infrastructure. Teams that only want a hosted logging proxy with no SDK work, or that need guaranteed enterprise SSO without paying for add-ons, may find simpler or more bundled options.

Pros

MIT-licensed core that can be self-hosted without usage limits
Covers tracing, prompt management, evaluation and dashboards in one product
Generous free cloud tier and unlimited users from the $29 Core plan
OpenTelemetry support and SDKs for Python and JavaScript

Cons

Usage above the included 100k units is billed extra, so busy apps pay more than the headline price
Free tier keeps only 30 days of data and two users
Enterprise SSO and RBAC require the $300 Teams add-on on Pro or the Enterprise plan

Which one fits

Choose Helicone if you need

Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes
Teams that need a gateway with caching and provider fallback alongside logging
Companies that prefer an Apache-2.0 tool they can self-host

Choose Langfuse if you need

Engineering teams running LLM apps or agents in production who need traces and cost tracking
Organisations that must self-host observability data for compliance
Teams that want prompts, datasets and evals tied to the same traces