Helicone vs Langfuse
Which should you use? A side-by-side look at what each one does, who it suits, what it costs, how hard it is to set up, and where each falls short.
AI tool · Freemium
An open-source LLM observability proxy that logs requests, costs and latency with a one-line integration.
AI tool · Open source
An open-source LLM engineering platform for tracing, prompt management, evaluations and cost tracking.
The short answer
Choose Helicone if you need…
- Quick cost and usage visibility
- Caching and rate limiting LLM calls
Choose Langfuse if you need…
- Tracing LLM apps in production
- Self-hosted prompt management
Side-by-side
| Helicone | Langfuse | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Prompting · Evaluation & observability | Prompting · Evaluation & observability |
| Price | Freemium | Open source |
| Platforms | Web, API, Self-hosted | Web, Self-hosted, API |
| Works with | OpenAI, Anthropic | LangChain, OpenAI, LlamaIndex |
| Hands-on tested by us | Not yet | Not yet |
| Last checked | 2026-10-29 | 2026-10-29 |
What each one is
Helicone
An open-source LLM observability proxy that logs requests, costs and latency with a one-line integration. Very easy to adopt. A proxy sits in your request path, so check reliability and data handling.
Langfuse
An open-source LLM engineering platform for tracing, prompt management, evaluations and cost tracking. A popular, well-documented default for observability. Self-hosting at scale needs some operational effort.
Best for
Helicone
- Quick cost and usage visibility
- Caching and rate limiting LLM calls
Langfuse
- Tracing LLM apps in production
- Self-hosted prompt management
Strengths
Helicone
- Proxy-based request logging
- Cost tracking
- Caching
- Prompt versioning
Langfuse
- Traces and spans for LLM calls
- Prompt management with versions
- Evals and datasets
- Cost and latency dashboards
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Helicone and Langfuse?
Helicone: An open-source LLM observability proxy that logs requests, costs and latency with a one-line integration. Langfuse: An open-source LLM engineering platform for tracing, prompt management, evaluations and cost tracking. Helicone suits quick cost and usage visibility, while Langfuse suits tracing llm apps in production.
Are Helicone and Langfuse free?
Helicone: Freemium. Langfuse: Open source.
What are other alternatives to Helicone and Langfuse?
Other options people compare them with include promptfoo, Braintrust, W&B Weave, Arize Phoenix, LangSmith.
Keep comparing
Built from our catalogue entries for both products: open-source details come from each project's README (AI-assisted, refreshed weekly) and GitHub data; AI-tool details are editorial. Spotted something wrong? Let us know from either product's page.