Staxly

Novu vs Helicone

Open-source notification infrastructure — workflows across email, SMS, push, chat, in-app
vs. Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy

Novu website ↗Helicone website ↗

Pricing tiers

Novu

Free
10K workflow runs/mo. All channels. 20 workflows, 2 environments, 3 team members, 24h retention.
Free
Self-hosted (OSS)
Open source (MIT). Run locally or on own infrastructure. No usage limits.
$0 base (usage-based)
Pro
From $30/mo. 30K+ runs, 7-day retention, branding removal, advanced email editor.
$30/mo
Team
From $250/mo. 250K+ runs, 10 envs, 90-day retention, RBAC, 600 RPS.
$250/mo
Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ runs, HIPAA BAA, SSO/OIDC, data residency (SG/UK/AU/JP/KR), self-hosted/VPC.
Custom
Novu 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 free on Novu vs hobby on Helicone.

MetricNovuHelicone
retention1 days—
workflow runs monthly10000 runs/mo—
workflows20 workflows—

Features

Novu · 15 features

  • Activity Feed — Message-by-message delivery timeline.
  • Chat — Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Mattermost, WhatsApp, WeChat.
  • Email — SendGrid, Postmark, Mailgun, AWS SES, Resend, SMTP, Plunk, Mailjet, Sparkpost, M…
  • Inbox — React/Next/Vue/Angular in-app Inbox component.
  • Layouts — Reusable email layouts with template nesting.
  • Multi-tenancy — Per-tenant branding, templates, preferences.
  • Novu Framework — Code-first workflow DSL (TypeScript) colocated with app code.
  • Preferences — Per-subscriber + global notification preferences.
  • Push — APNs, FCM, Expo, OneSignal, Pushpad, Pusher.
  • Self-hosting — Docker Compose / Kubernetes deployment of full stack.
  • SMS — Twilio, MessageBird, Plivo, Nexmo, Termii, Sendchamp, Africa's Talking, Kannel, …
  • Subscribers — Subscriber profiles with channels, preferences, topics.
  • Topics — Pub/sub style subscribe many users to a topic.
  • Translations — i18n support for templates.
  • Workflows — Code-first or visual notification workflows with steps, branches, delays.

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.

Developer interfaces

KindNovuHelicone
CLINovu CLIHelicone CLI
SDKgo-novu, @novu/api, @novu/framework, novu-java, novu-kotlin, novu-php, novu (Python), @novu/react (Inbox), novu-rubyhelicone (npm), helicone-python
RESTNovu REST APIAsync Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL)
OTHEROutbound Webhooks, Self-hosted (Docker)Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Novu and Helicone may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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