Staxly

Fly.io vs Helicone

Run your app close to users, globally
vs. Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy

Fly.io websiteHelicone website

Pricing tiers

Fly.io

Pay-as-you-go
No monthly fee. Machines billed per second. Free allocations: ~3 small shared machines + 3 GB volumes.
$0 base (usage-based)
Shared CPU 1x — 256 MB
Entry VM. 1 shared vCPU, 256 MB RAM. ~$2.02/month continuously on.
$2/mo
Performance 1x — 2 GB
Dedicated 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM.
$32/mo
Reservation — Shared (1 yr)
$36/year for $5/mo credit (40% savings).
$36/mo
Shared CPU 8x — 16 GB
8 shared vCPU, 16 GB RAM.
$89/mo
Performance 16x — 128 GB
Dedicated 16 vCPU, 128 GB RAM.
$1014/mo
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated capacity, SLA.
Custom
Fly.io website

Helicone

Hobby (Free)
10,000 requests/month. 7-day retention. 1 seat. Basic monitoring.
Free
Startup Discount
<2 years, <$5M funding: 50% off first year.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Hosted (OSS)
MIT-licensed. Run Helicone yourself for free.
$0 base (usage-based)
Pro
$79/month. 10k free + usage-based. Unlimited seats. Alerts, reports, HQL query language. 1-month retention.
$79/mo
Team
$799/month. 5 orgs, SOC-2 + HIPAA compliance, dedicated Slack, 3-month retention.
$799/mo
Enterprise
Custom MSA, SAML SSO, on-prem deploy, bulk discounts, forever retention.
Custom
Helicone website

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing pay-as-you-go on Fly.io vs hobby on Helicone.

MetricFly.ioHelicone
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Fly.io · 14 features

  • Auto Stop/StartMachines auto-stop when idle, start on request (like scale-to-zero).
  • CertsLet's Encrypt + wildcard certs managed.
  • Fly GPUA100/L40S/A10 on-demand GPU machines.
  • Fly Kubernetes (FKS)Managed Kubernetes on Fly machines.
  • Fly MachinesFirecracker microVMs. Start in <1s. Run any Docker image.
  • Fly PostgresManaged Postgres via Supabase partnership (2024). Also legacy self-run Postgres
  • fly-replay headersRoute request to another region at app level.
  • Fly VolumesPersistent SSD attached to a Machine. Encrypted at rest.
  • Global AnycastSingle IP routes to the closest region automatically.
  • LiteFSDistributed SQLite with primary/replica across regions.
  • Private Networks6PN WireGuard mesh. Connect machines across regions privately.
  • SecretsEncrypted env vars propagated to all regions.
  • Tigris (partner)S3-compatible storage for Fly apps. By partner.
  • Upstash Redis (partner)Managed Redis via Upstash.

Helicone · 16 features

  • AlertsThresholds on error rate, latency, cost, usage. Pro+.
  • Async LoggingLog AFTER the LLM call via SDK — zero added latency.
  • Cost TrackingAutomatic cost calculation per call by provider/model.
  • DashboardRequest tables, aggregate metrics, cost breakdowns.
  • EvaluatorsLLM-as-judge + custom evaluators on runs.
  • ExperimentsA/B test different models/prompts.
  • HQL (SQL over traces)Query your logged data with SQL. Pro+.
  • PII RedactionAutomatically scrub emails, credit cards, etc. from logs.
  • Prompt CachingCache identical requests → save money.
  • Prompts & VersionsStore + version + A/B test prompts.
  • Proxy Mode1-line integration via base URL swap. Captures all requests.
  • Rate LimitingPer-user + per-key rate limit policies.
  • ReportsScheduled email reports with KPIs.
  • Self-HostingDocker + k8s deployment.
  • SessionsGroup related calls (chat sessions, agent runs).
  • User MetricsPer-user cost + usage segmentation.

Developer interfaces

KindFly.ioHelicone
CLIflyctl CLIHelicone CLI
SDKhelicone (npm), helicone-python
RESTMachines APIAsync Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL)
GRAPHQLFly GraphQL API
OTHERFly Postgres (wire)Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Fly.io and Helicone are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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