Weaviate vs Helicone
Open-source vector DB with hybrid search + modular embeddings
vs. Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy
Pricing tiers
Weaviate
Sandbox (14-day trial)
14-day free trial. Shared cloud cluster. 250 Query Agent req/month.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Hosted (OSS)
BSD-3 licensed. Run free on your infra.
$0 base (usage-based)
Flex
From $45/mo pay-as-you-go. Shared HA cluster. 99.5% uptime. 30k Query Agent reqs/mo.
$45/mo
Premium
From $400/mo prepaid. Shared or dedicated. 99.95% uptime. SSO/SAML. Unlimited Query Agent. HIPAA on AWS.
$400/mo
Enterprise
Custom. BYOC / private deployment.
Custom
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
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing sandbox on Weaviate vs hobby on Helicone.
| Metric | Weaviate | Helicone |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Weaviate · 13 features
- Backups — S3, GCS, Azure Blob backup destinations.
- BYOC — Run managed Weaviate in your own cloud account.
- Compression (PQ/BQ/RQ) — Reduce vector memory footprint by up to 32x.
- Dynamic Indexing — HNSW + flat + dynamic index selection.
- Generative Search — Search + RAG answers in one API call.
- Hybrid Search — Combine BM25 + dense vector search in one query.
- Modular Vectorizers — 60+ plug-in vectorizers + generative AI modules.
- Multi-Tenancy — Per-tenant isolated vector stores in one cluster.
- Query Agent (AI) — Agentic natural-language query generator.
- RBAC — Role-based access control for collections + tenants.
- Replication — Multi-node async + sync replication.
- Self-Host (OSS) — BSD-3 licensed. Docker + k8s Helm.
- Structured Filters — Metadata filters pre + post vector search.
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
| Kind | Weaviate | Helicone |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | Helicone CLI |
| SDK | weaviate-client, weaviate-go-client, weaviate-java-client, weaviate-ts-client | helicone (npm), helicone-python |
| REST | Weaviate REST API | Async Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL) |
| GRAPHQL | Weaviate GraphQL | — |
| MCP | Weaviate MCP | — |
| OTHER | Weaviate gRPC | Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Weaviate 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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