Helicone Alternatives After the Mintlify Acquisition

On March 3, 2026, Helicone announced it was joining Mintlify. For the 16,000+ organizations relying on Helicone for LLM cost monitoring and observability, this raises a critical question: what happens next?

The short answer: Helicone is entering maintenance mode. Mintlify has committed to security patches, bug fixes, and new model support, but active feature development is over. If you're building on Helicone today, it's time to evaluate your options.

What Helicone Did Well

Before we compare alternatives, it's worth acknowledging why Helicone was popular:

• Proxy-based integration: Change your base URL and you're done
• Real-time cost dashboards with per-request breakdowns
• Generous free tier: 10,000 requests/month at no cost
• Open-source core with 4,800+ GitHub stars
• Multi-provider support: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and more

Any serious alternative needs to match these capabilities. Here's how the top contenders stack up.

The Comparison: 4 Helicone Alternatives

Feature	LLMeter	LangSmith	Portkey	Lunary
Architecture	API key (no proxy)	SDK-based	AI gateway (proxy)	SDK-based
Setup Time	2 minutes	15-30 min	10-15 min	10-15 min
Cost Tracking	Real-time, per-key	Yes (traces)	Yes (gateway)	Yes (basic)
Budget Alerts	Built-in (anomaly detection)	No	Rate limits	Basic
Providers	12+ (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.)	OpenAI, Anthropic	15+ (gateway)	OpenAI, Anthropic
Code Changes	None (reads provider dashboard)	SDK instrumentation	Base URL change	SDK instrumentation
Self-Hosted Option	No (managed SaaS)	No	Yes	Yes
Free Tier	Yes	5K traces/mo	10K requests/mo	10K events/mo
Best For	Teams wanting zero-risk cost visibility	LangChain users needing eval + tracing	Teams wanting a full AI gateway	Open-source fans wanting self-hosting

1. LLMeter — Zero-Risk Cost Monitoring

LLMeter takes a fundamentally different approach from Helicone. Instead of routing your API calls through a proxy, LLMeter reads your usage data directly from provider dashboards using your API key. This means:

• No proxy, no latency: Your API calls go directly to OpenAI/Anthropic/Google. LLMeter never touches your traffic.
• No code changes: Paste your API key and you're done. No SDK, no base URL change, no deployment.
• No single point of failure: If LLMeter goes down, your LLM calls keep working. With proxy-based tools like Helicone, a proxy outage means your entire app goes down.

LLMeter also includes anomaly detection with customizable sensitivity — something Helicone never shipped. You get alerted when spending deviates from normal patterns, not just when it crosses a static threshold.

Migration from Helicone: Takes about 2 minutes. Sign up, paste your provider API keys, and you immediately see your cost data. No code changes, no deployment, no risk. See the full migration guide.

2. LangSmith — For the LangChain Ecosystem

LangSmith is LangChain's observability platform. If you're already deep in the LangChain ecosystem, it's the natural choice. You get tracing, evaluation, cost tracking, and prompt management in one tool.

The catch: LangSmith requires SDK instrumentation. You'll need to update your codebase to add tracing calls, and the cost tracking is a secondary feature — not the primary focus. If all you need is cost visibility, LangSmith is overkill.

Best for: Teams using LangChain who want full LLMOps (tracing + eval + cost) in one platform.

3. Portkey — Full AI Gateway

Portkey is the closest architectural match to Helicone — it's a proxy (AI gateway) that sits between your app and LLM providers. You change your base URL and all traffic routes through Portkey, giving you cost tracking, caching, load balancing, and automatic retries.

The tradeoff is the same one Helicone had: your LLM calls depend on Portkey's uptime. If the gateway goes down, so does your app. For teams that want gateway features (caching, fallbacks, load balancing), this tradeoff makes sense. For teams that just want cost visibility, it's unnecessary risk.

Best for: Teams that want a full AI gateway with routing, caching, and fallbacks — not just cost tracking.

4. Lunary — Open-Source Observability

Lunary is an open-source LLM observability platform you can self-host. It offers tracing, analytics, and basic cost tracking. If your team has strong opinions about data sovereignty or wants to run everything on your own infrastructure, Lunary is worth evaluating.

The downside: self-hosting means you own the maintenance burden. You need to provision infrastructure, handle upgrades, manage backups, and debug issues yourself. The "free" in open-source has a hidden cost in engineering time.

Best for: Teams with strict data residency requirements who want to self-host their observability stack.

So Which One Should You Pick?

It depends on what you actually need:

• Just cost tracking with zero risk? LLMeter. No proxy, no code changes, 2-minute setup. The lowest-risk migration path from Helicone.
• Full LLMOps (tracing + eval + cost)? LangSmith if you use LangChain, Portkey if you don't.
• Must self-host everything? Lunary or Langfuse (another open-source option worth considering).
• Need an AI gateway with caching/routing? Portkey.

The Clock is Ticking

Helicone isn't disappearing tomorrow. Mintlify has promised continued security patches and new model support. But no new features means the gap between Helicone and actively-developed alternatives will only widen.

If you're on Helicone today, the best time to evaluate alternatives is now — while you have the luxury of choosing on your own timeline, rather than scrambling when something breaks and nobody's shipping fixes.

Start with the tool that matches your needs. If cost monitoring is your primary concern and you want the simplest possible migration, try LLMeter free — you'll be up and running before your coffee gets cold.