Helicone vs Portkey

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: Portkey — $49/mo vs $79/mo for Helicone
Free plan: Both have one
Public API: Both have one
Higher Trust score: Portkey — 92 vs 80 for Helicone
Best fit: Helicone: Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes · Portkey: Teams calling several LLM providers who want a single API with fallbacks and caching

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.

PortkeyAI gateway that routes requests to 1,600+ models through one API, with caching, fallbacks, guardrails and observability.

Side by side

Fact	Helicone	Portkey
Category	LLM Observability & Evaluation	AI Gateways & Routing
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starts at	$79/mo	$49/mo
Public API	Yes	Yes
Trust score	80 / 100	92 / 100
Platforms	Web, API	Web, API
Company	Helicone, Inc.	Palo Alto Networks
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

Portkey

Portkey is a mature way to put one gateway in front of many model providers, with failover, caching and logging included. It suits teams running LLM apps in production that want cost and reliability controls without writing them. The acquisition by a security vendor is likely to steer the roadmap toward enterprise governance, so small teams should watch pricing and packaging.

Pros

Open-source MIT-licensed gateway that can be self-hosted
Routing, fallbacks, load balancing and semantic caching in one place
Free developer tier and a $49 production tier with published overage pricing
Observability, guardrails and prompt management on the same platform

Cons

The free tier is limited to 10,000 logs and is not meant for production
Brand and packaging are shifting under Palo Alto Networks' Prisma AIRS
Advanced governance, SSO and VPC hosting need 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 Portkey if you need

Teams calling several LLM providers who want a single API with fallbacks and caching
Platform teams that need guardrails, logs and access control around model usage