Helicone vs LiteLLM (2026)
Updated March 10, 2026
Overview
Helicone is an open-source LLM observability and proxy platform. By adding a single line of code, developers get request logging, cost tracking, caching, rate limiting, and analytics for their LLM applications. Helicone supports all major LLM providers and can function as both a gateway proxy and a logging-only integration.
LiteLLM is an open-source LLM gateway and Python SDK from BerriAI that puts 140+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API you host yourself.
Key features
Core capabilities each platform advertises.
- LLM observability and monitoring
- Cost tracking and analytics
- Request caching
- Rate limiting and user management
- Open-source with managed option
- OpenAI-compatible proxy for 140+ providers
- Virtual keys scoped to users and teams
- Budgets, rate limits, and spend tracking
- Fallbacks, retries, and load balancing
- Guardrails for PII masking and prompt injection
Strengths and tradeoffs
What each tool does well, and the limitations to keep in mind.
Pros
- Extremely simple integration (one line of code)
- Open-source with self-hosting option
- Generous free tier (100k requests)
- Supports all major LLM providers
Cons
- Advanced features require paid tiers
- Data retention limited on free tier
- Self-hosting requires technical expertise
Pros
- MIT-licensed proxy, free at any volume
- 140+ providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API
- Virtual keys and budgets per user and team
- Runs inside your own infrastructure
Cons
- You run, scale, and secure the proxy yourself
- Two PyPI releases were compromised in a March 2026 supply chain attack
- SSO, RBAC, and audit logs require the Enterprise license
- Tracing and evals depend on separate tools
Helicone or LiteLLM — which should you choose?
Choose Helicone if you wantChoose if you want
- LLM cost monitoring and optimization
- Production request debugging
- User-level usage tracking and rate limiting
- Caching to reduce latency and cost
- Team-wide LLM spend management
Choose LiteLLM if you wantChoose if you want
- Self-hosted LLM gateway for data control
- Standardizing LLM access across teams
- Budget enforcement per team or project
- Switching providers without code changes
- Issuing scoped API keys to internal users
Compare Helicone and LiteLLM on your own traffic
Respan lets you trace LLM and agent calls across any model or framework, A/B test prompts on production traffic, and route requests across 1,000+ models through one gateway.
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