Helicone vs Langfuse: pricing, quotas & features (2026)
Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy
vs. Open-source LLM engineering platform — observability, prompts, evals
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated June 2026
Summary
Helicone and Langfuse are both ai-observability platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. Langfuse's paid plans start at $29/month, lower than Helicone's entry point at $79/month. Both have 16 documented features in Staxly's catalog. Budget-sensitive teams will find Langfuse easier to justify early on. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Helicone and Langfuse's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
Helicone vs Langfuse: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2026)
En esta comparativa analizamos Helicone y Langfuse lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.
Helicone es una plataforma de la categoría ai-observability — Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy. Ofrece 6 tiers de precio: Hobby (Free) gratuito, Startup Discount gratuito, Self-Hosted (OSS) gratuito, Pro desde $79/mes. Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 16 características y 8 interfazes para desarrolladores.
Langfuse pertenece a la categoría ai-observability — Open-source LLM engineering platform — observability, prompts, evals. Ofrece 6 tiers de precio: Hobby (Cloud Free) gratuito, Self-Hosted (OSS) gratuito, Core desde $29/mes, Pro desde $199/mes. Su catálogo documenta 16 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.
A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.
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Pricing tiers
Helicone
Langfuse
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing hobby on Helicone vs hobby on Langfuse.
| Metric | Helicone | Langfuse |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Helicone · 16 features
- Alerts — Thresholds on error rate, latency, cost, usage. Pro+.
- Async Logging — Log AFTER the LLM call via SDK — zero added latency.
- Cost Tracking — Automatic cost calculation per call by provider/model.
- Dashboard — Request tables, aggregate metrics, cost breakdowns.
- Evaluators — LLM-as-judge + custom evaluators on runs.
- Experiments — A/B test different models/prompts.
- HQL (SQL over traces) — Query your logged data with SQL. Pro+.
- PII Redaction — Automatically scrub emails, credit cards, etc. from logs.
- Prompt Caching — Cache identical requests → save money.
- Prompts & Versions — Store + version + A/B test prompts.
- Proxy Mode — 1-line integration via base URL swap. Captures all requests.
- Rate Limiting — Per-user + per-key rate limit policies.
- Reports — Scheduled email reports with KPIs.
- Self-Hosting — Docker + k8s deployment.
- Sessions — Group related calls (chat sessions, agent runs).
- User Metrics — Per-user cost + usage segmentation.
Langfuse · 16 features
- Annotation Queues — Human reviewers rate traces. Unlimited on Pro+.
- Dashboards — Aggregate metrics, cost, quality across projects.
- Datasets — Curate test sets from production traces. Run experiments.
- EU Cloud Region — GDPR-compliant hosting in EU.
- Evaluations — LLM-as-judge, manual scores, custom model-graded evaluators.
- LLM Cost Tracking — Automatic cost calculation per provider/model.
- OpenTelemetry Native — OTel SDK → Langfuse endpoint works out of box.
- Playground — Test prompts + models + variables live.
- Prompt Management — Version, tag, label prompts. Reference from code by label.
- Public API — Full REST API for ingest, query, prompt management.
- Python @observe decorator — One-line decorator to trace any function.
- Self-Hosting — Docker Compose + k8s Helm chart.
- Sessions — Group related traces (conversations, agent runs).
- Tracing — Capture every LLM call, tool call, nested span with inputs/outputs/cost.
- Users Tracking — Segment traces by user ID, track per-user cost.
- Webhooks — Subscribe to trace completion events.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Helicone | Langfuse |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Helicone CLI | — |
| SDK | helicone (npm), helicone-python | langfuse-js, langfuse-python |
| REST | Async Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL) | Langfuse REST API |
| MCP | — | Langfuse MCP Server |
| OTHER | Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks | Langfuse Dashboard, OpenTelemetry endpoint |
Key takeaways
- Both Helicone and Langfuse offer a free tier — Helicone ("Hobby (Free)") and Langfuse ("Hobby (Cloud Free)") — with no credit card required to start.
- The entry-level paid plan is $79/month for Helicone (Pro) vs. $29/month for Langfuse (Core).
- Both platforms have 16 documented features in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only Helicone offers CLI; only Langfuse offers MCP.
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