Helicone vs LiteLLM

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

Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Both have one
Higher Trust score: LiteLLM — 88 vs 80 for Helicone
Best fit: Helicone: Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes · LiteLLM: Platform teams giving many internal developers governed access to several LLM vendors
Platforms: Helicone: Web · LiteLLM: Linux

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.

LiteLLMOpen-source gateway and Python SDK that put 100+ LLM providers behind one OpenAI-style API, with keys, budgets and spend tracking.

Side by side

Fact	Helicone	LiteLLM
Category	LLM Observability & Evaluation	AI Gateways & Routing
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$79/mo	—
Public API	Yes	Yes
Trust score	80 / 100	88 / 100
Platforms	Web, API	Linux, API
Company	Helicone, Inc.	Berri AI (LiteLLM)
Launched	2023	2023
Last verified	Oct 29, 2026	Oct 2, 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

LiteLLM

LiteLLM is the default pick for a platform team that wants one OpenAI-compatible door to many model vendors, with per-team budgets and keys, without paying a hosted router a margin. The SDK is just as useful to a single developer who wants to swap providers with a one-line change. Running the gateway reliably, including its database and scaling, is your job, and the governance features that large companies ask for sit behind the Enterprise licence.

Pros

One OpenAI-style interface to 100+ providers, in an SDK and a self-hosted proxy
Virtual keys, spend tracking by key, user and team, budgets and rate limits in the free gateway
Retry and fallback routing across deployments, plus MCP and agent gateways
Self-hosted, so traffic and keys stay in your own environment

Cons

You run and scale the proxy yourself, including its database and upgrades
SSO, SCIM, audit logs and SLAs require the Enterprise licence, priced only by quote
The unified format can lag behind provider-specific features on new models

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 LiteLLM if you need

Platform teams giving many internal developers governed access to several LLM vendors
Developers who want to switch or fall back between model providers without rewriting code
Organisations that must keep prompts and keys inside their own infrastructure