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Helicone in brief
The easiest LLM monitoring tool to integrate, ideal for getting fast visibility on costs and performance without heavy infrastructure.
- Price18 €/month
- CategoryMCP & Connectors
- RecommendedYes
The Essentials
- Proxy and monitoring for LLM API calls (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and others)
- One-line integration, no framework required
- Free plan available, paid from $18/month
- Focused on cost and latency monitoring, fewer evals than LangSmith
What is Helicone?
Helicone is a proxy that sits between your application and the LLM API. You change one URL in your code (the OpenAI URL becomes a Helicone URL), and Helicone logs all your calls: prompts, responses, tokens consumed, latency, estimated costs. The interface gives you dashboards on your usage, costs, and errors. It's the most minimalist approach to LLM monitoring, which is also its main advantage.
Strengths
One-line integration
Change the base URL in the OpenAI SDK. That's it. No extra SDK, no code wrapping. Integration friction is near zero.
Real-time cost monitoring
Helicone calculates the cost of each call and the cumulative total by period, model, user, and endpoint. Very useful for controlling a runaway OpenAI bill.
Built-in LLM cache
Helicone can cache identical LLM responses. On repetitive prompts, cost and latency are reduced.
Limits
Fewer evals than LangSmith or Langfuse
Helicone is strong on basic monitoring and debugging, weaker on automated evaluations and test datasets.
Dependency on a third-party proxy
Your LLM calls pass through Helicone's servers. For highly sensitive data, that's worth considering. A self-hosted version exists.
Pricing
Free plan with 100,000 requests/month. Paid plan from $18/month. Check helicone.ai for current rates.
Alternatives
Helicone = lightweight, simple monitoring. Alternative Langfuse (langfuse.com) = $27/month, more complete on evals, open source. Alternative LangSmith (smith.langchain.com) = $37/month, optimal for LangChain stacks.
Verdict
Helicone is the pick when you want visibility on your LLM costs in 5 minutes of integration. For a startup or side project with growing OpenAI calls, it's the fastest solution to deploy. For advanced evals and debugging complex agents, complement with Langfuse or LangSmith.
FAQ
Does Helicone slow down my LLM calls?
The latency added is minimal (a few milliseconds) because Helicone is an optimized proxy. In practice, the impact isn't perceptible.
Does Helicone work with Anthropic and Mistral?
Yes, not just OpenAI. Most major LLM APIs are supported.
Can I see full prompts in Helicone?
Yes, all prompts and responses are logged and accessible in the interface. A masking option is available for sensitive data.
Can Helicone be self-hosted?
Yes, the open source version is available on GitHub.
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Screenshots Helicone
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Helicone : 0/10.
The easiest LLM monitoring tool to integrate, ideal for getting fast visibility on costs and performance without heavy infrastructure..
Test Helicone yourself
A free trial is available. Plan thirty minutes to form your own opinion.
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Helicone
18 €/month