LiteLLM vs Helicone
Helicone is managed observability for LLM apps: logging, tracing, alerts and a query language over your requests. Hobby is free for 10,000 requests with 1 GB of storage and a single seat, Pro is $79/mo with usage-based pricing applied on top, and SOC-2 and HIPAA compliance start at $799/mo. LiteLLM is the open-source gateway you run yourself for a flat $15/mo, with logging on your own pod.
LiteLLM vs Helicone: The Verdict
These two are not the same shape of tool, and picking well starts with admitting that. Helicone is observability-first: it is where you go to see what your LLM calls did, search them, alert on them and share dashboards with a team. LiteLLM is gateway-first: one OpenAI-compatible endpoint over 100+ providers, with virtual keys, budgets, routing, fallbacks and its own request logging. If your problem is visibility across many apps and you want somebody else running the pipeline, Helicone does that job better than a self-hosted gateway will. What to price in: Pro at $79/mo is a platform fee with usage-based pricing applied on top, so the monthly number is not the whole number, and the compliance tier most companies actually need for a vendor review, SOC-2 and HIPAA, sits at $799/mo. Self-hosted LiteLLM has no per-request billing at all, keeps every log on infrastructure you control, and costs $15/mo flat. It is MIT-licensed with about 56,000 GitHub stars. You give up the polished analytics UI, the alerting, and any compliance artefact you could hand an auditor.
Last updated: 2026-08-07Quick Comparison
| Feature | Helicone | LiteLLM |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to 10,000 requests, $79/mo Pro, $799/mo Team | $15/mo flat hosting plus your provider costs |
| Usage billing | Usage-based pricing applies on top of Pro and Team | None. The pod is the bill |
| Free tier | 10,000 requests, 1 GB storage, 1 seat, 1 organisation | The software is free, you pay for the pod |
| Seats | 1 on Hobby, unlimited from Pro | Unlimited |
| Organisations | 1 on Hobby and Pro, 5 on Team | As many as you want to run |
| SOC-2 and HIPAA | Team plan, $799/mo | Not applicable. Your infrastructure, your controls |
| What it is | Managed LLM observability and analytics | Gateway over 100+ providers, with its own logging |
| Routing, fallbacks and retries | Not the product focus | Yes, fully configurable |
| Virtual keys and budgets | Not the product focus | Yes, per team and per key |
| Dashboards, alerts and query language | Yes, alerts and HQL from Pro | Basic admin UI. This is a real gap |
| Where request data lives | Helicone cloud, on-prem only on Enterprise | PostgreSQL on your pod |
| Discounts | 50% off the first year for startups under 2 years and $5M funding, $100 credit for open-source companies | Not applicable |
| License | Managed platform | MIT, about 56,000 GitHub stars |
Where Helicone Gets Expensive
Trade-offs to weigh before committing.
The Sticker Price Is Not the Whole Price
Helicone marks both Pro at $79/mo and Team at $799/mo with a note that usage-based pricing applies. The subscription is a floor, and the number you actually pay depends on requests, tokens and stored data.
Compliance Lives at $799 a Month
SOC-2 and HIPAA compliance are Team plan features. If a customer security questionnaire is the reason you need them, the relevant price is $799/mo rather than $79/mo, and on-prem deployment is Enterprise only.
One Organisation Until You Are Paying $799
Hobby and Pro both give you a single organisation. Agencies, consultancies or anyone separating clients or environments hit that boundary early, and the fix is the Team plan.
It Watches the Traffic, It Does Not Route It
Observability is the product. Provider fallbacks, retry policy, load balancing across models and per-team virtual keys with budgets are gateway concerns, so most teams end up running a gateway anyway and paying for both.
Why Self-Host with LiteLLM?
What you get when you pick this stack.
No Per-Request Meter at All
LiteLLM on a $15/mo Grow pod logs every request to its own PostgreSQL database. A month with ten times the traffic costs the same $15, and nothing about your bill depends on how chatty your agents are.
Routing and Observability in One Place
The same gateway that fails over between providers also records the request, the model, the latency and the spend. You get the operational half and the visibility half without wiring two vendors together.
Every Log Stays on Your Infrastructure
Prompts, responses and usage records live on a pod you own, so a vendor security review has one fewer third party in it. Retention is your backup policy rather than a plan tier.
Unlimited Keys, Teams and Environments
Mint separate virtual keys with their own budgets for each team, client or environment on one pod. There is no organisation limit to hit and no seat to buy.
Real Cost Comparison
A small team wanting visibility over their LLM traffic, plus provider failover.
- Helicone Hobby: free for 10,000 requests, 1 GB storage, 1 seat
- Helicone Pro: $79/mo, unlimited seats, alerts and HQL
- Usage-based pricing applies on top of the Pro fee
- SOC-2 and HIPAA, if you need them, are on Team at $799/mo
- InstaPods Grow plan: $15/mo (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage)
- LiteLLM: free and open source (MIT)
- Request logging, spend tracking and virtual keys included
- Routing, fallbacks and retries in the same tool
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Helicone cost in 2026?
Helicone lists a free Hobby plan with 10,000 requests, 1 GB of storage and 1 seat in 1 organisation. Pro is $79/mo with unlimited seats, alerts and its query language, and Team is $799/mo with 5 organisations, SOC-2 and HIPAA compliance and a dedicated Slack channel. Both paid plans note that usage-based pricing applies on top. Enterprise adds SAML SSO and on-prem deployment at custom pricing. There is a 50% first-year discount for startups under two years old with under $5M raised, and a $100 credit for open-source companies. Prices read from helicone.ai on 7 August 2026.
Are LiteLLM and Helicone really alternatives?
They overlap rather than match. Helicone is managed observability for LLM calls: logs, traces, alerts, dashboards and a query language. LiteLLM is a gateway that also logs: one OpenAI-compatible endpoint across 100+ providers, with virtual keys, budgets, routing and fallbacks, plus request and spend records in its own database. Teams often run both. If you are choosing one and cost control plus routing matter more than analytics depth, self-hosted LiteLLM covers it for $15/mo.
Can I self-host Helicone?
On-prem deployment is listed as an Enterprise feature at custom pricing, so it is not something you pick up on a $79/mo plan. LiteLLM is self-hosted by default, which is the structural difference between the two: with LiteLLM the deployment model is the product, not a tier.
What visibility do I actually get with LiteLLM?
Per-request logs with model, latency, tokens and cost, spend tracked by virtual key and by team, budget enforcement, and an admin UI on your pod. It is honest to say it is not as polished as a dedicated observability product: there is no alerting engine and no query language over your traces. If you need those, either add an observability tool or accept the tradeoff.
Does self-hosting help with a security review?
It removes a vendor from the request path, which usually simplifies the data-flow section of a review. What it does not give you is a compliance artefact: there is no SOC-2 report or BAA that comes with running software yourself, and the controls become your responsibility. If a customer specifically asks for a vendor's SOC-2, a managed platform with that certification is the shorter path.
What does LiteLLM need to run?
A PostgreSQL database for keys, budgets and logs, which the InstaPods image bundles on the $15/mo Grow plan (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage) with HTTPS and daily backups already configured. Add your provider keys, mint virtual keys for your teams, and point your applications at the OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
Run your own LLM gateway for $15/mo
Instant launch with PostgreSQL, HTTPS and daily backups already configured. Request logging and spend tracking with no usage meter.
Deploy LiteLLM