Helicone vs LangSmith: pricing, quotas & features (2026)
Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy
vs. LLM observability, testing & evaluation — by LangChain
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated June 2026
Summary
Helicone and LangSmith 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. LangSmith's paid plans start at $39/month, lower than Helicone's entry point at $79/month. Helicone has a broader documented feature set (16 vs 14 features). Budget-sensitive teams will find LangSmith easier to justify early on. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Helicone and LangSmith's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
Helicone vs LangSmith: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2026)
En esta comparativa analizamos Helicone y LangSmith 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.
LangSmith pertenece a la categoría ai-observability — LLM observability, testing & evaluation — by LangChain. Ofrece 3 tiers de precio: Developer (Free) gratuito, Plus desde $39/mes, Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 14 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
LangSmith
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing hobby on Helicone vs developer on LangSmith.
| Metric | Helicone | LangSmith |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
LangSmith · 14 features
- Alerts — Threshold alerts on latency, cost, eval metrics.
- Annotation Queues — Human-review workflows for trace quality rating.
- Custom Dashboards — Aggregate metrics dashboards per project/tag.
- Datasets — Collect examples → use as eval sets or training data.
- Evaluations — LLM-as-judge, embedding similarity, custom Python evaluators, offline batch eval…
- LLM Tracing — Automatic trace every LLM call + tool call + chain step.
- LangChain Integration — Auto-trace any LangChain/LangGraph run with env var.
- LangGraph Integration — First-class trace + eval for LangGraph agents.
- OpenTelemetry Export — Export traces as OTLP to Datadog/Honeycomb/etc.
- Playground — Test prompts + models inline before deploying.
- Prompt Canvas — Visual prompt editor with live test + eval.
- Prompt Hub — Public + private prompt library with versioning.
- Self-Hosted (Enterprise) — Docker + k8s deployment in your infra.
- Threads + Sessions — Group traces into conversational sessions.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Helicone | LangSmith |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Helicone CLI | LangSmith CLI |
| SDK | helicone (npm), helicone-python | langsmith-js, langsmith-python |
| REST | Async Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL) | LangSmith REST API |
| MCP | — | LangSmith MCP |
| OTHER | Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks | LangSmith Dashboard |
Key takeaways
- Both Helicone and LangSmith offer a free tier — Helicone ("Hobby (Free)") and LangSmith ("Developer (Free)") — with no credit card required to start.
- The entry-level paid plan is $79/month for Helicone (Pro) vs. $39/month for LangSmith (Plus).
- Helicone has a broader documented feature set (16 features) vs. LangSmith (14 features) in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only LangSmith offers MCP.
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