Helicone is in maintenance mode — migration guide

Helicone is shutting down.
Migrate to LLMeter in 30 seconds.

Helicone was acquired by Mintlify in March 2026. Active development has stopped. 16,000+ teams need a new home for LLM cost monitoring. LLMeter is the open-source alternative — no proxy, no SDK, no code changes.

No credit card required · Free plan never expires

The situation

Why migrate now?

16,000+ organizations relied on Helicone in production. Here's what the acquisition means for you.

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No new features

Mintlify confirmed: only security patches and bug fixes going forward. No new integrations, no new analytics, no roadmap. The product is frozen.

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Proxy risk

Helicone proxies all your LLM traffic. A maintenance-mode proxy is a single point of failure you can't afford — one outage and all your LLM calls fail.

bolt

Zero-downtime switch

LLMeter uses read-only API keys — no proxy dependency. Switch monitoring tools without touching a single line of your application code.

Migration guide

Migrate in 3 steps

No SDK installation. No code deployment. No downtime. Just paste a key and go.

1 key

Sign up for LLMeter

Create a free account at llmeter.org. No credit card required. The Free plan supports 1 provider forever.

Create account arrow_forward
2 content_paste

Paste your read-only API key

Go to your provider's dashboard (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.), generate a read-only API key, and paste it into LLMeter. That's it — no code changes.

3 delete_sweep

Remove the Helicone proxy

Revert your base URL and headers back to the provider defaults. No more proxy dependency, no more single point of failure.

Side by side

Helicone vs LLMeter

A direct comparison on what matters most for LLM cost monitoring.

Feature Helicone LLMeter
Setup method Proxy (change base URL) Read-only API key (no code changes)
Time to first dashboard ~5 min (SDK/proxy config) 30 seconds
Code changes required Yes (base URL, headers) None
Open source Yes Yes
Active development close Maintenance mode only check Active
Multi-provider support OpenAI, Anthropic, more OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI, Mistral, DeepSeek, OpenRouter
Budget alerts Basic Advanced (anomaly detection, daily thresholds, Slack)
Free tier 10K requests/mo Free forever (1 provider)
Sees your prompts? Yes (proxies all traffic) check Never
Team features Yes Yes (Team $49/mo, Enterprise)
Architecture

No proxy. No risk.

Helicone routes all your LLM traffic through its servers. LLMeter takes a fundamentally safer approach.

close Helicone — proxy-based

  • close All LLM traffic routed through Helicone servers
  • close Proxy outage = your LLM calls fail
  • close Requires base URL changes and header injection
  • close Third party sees all prompts and completions
  • close Added latency on every LLM call

check LLMeter — API key-based

  • check Reads usage data directly from provider APIs
  • check Zero impact on LLM call latency or reliability
  • check No code changes — paste a read-only key and go
  • check Never sees your prompts or completions
  • check Your traffic path stays unchanged
Questions

Migration FAQ

Why is Helicone shutting down active development? expand_more

Helicone was acquired by Mintlify in March 2026. The Mintlify team announced that active feature development has ended — only security patches, bug fixes, and new model support will continue. The 16,000+ organizations using Helicone in production are encouraged to plan their migration.

Does LLMeter require me to change my API base URL? expand_more

No. Unlike Helicone's proxy approach, LLMeter uses read-only API keys to fetch your usage data directly from the provider. Your application code stays untouched — no base URL changes, no headers, no SDK.

Can LLMeter see my prompts or completions? expand_more

No. LLMeter only accesses usage and billing data through read-only API keys. We never see your prompts, completions, or any content flowing through your LLM calls. This is a fundamental architectural difference from proxy-based tools like Helicone.

How long does migration take? expand_more

Setting up LLMeter takes about 30 seconds — just paste a read-only API key. Removing the Helicone proxy from your codebase depends on how many services use it, but for most teams it's a one-line revert per service. You can run both in parallel during transition.

What if I need features Helicone had that LLMeter doesn't? expand_more

LLMeter focuses on cost monitoring, budget alerts, and optimization — the core features most teams use Helicone for. If you relied on Helicone's prompt logging or evaluation features, those are outside LLMeter's scope. For pure cost visibility, LLMeter is a drop-in replacement.

Is LLMeter free? expand_more

Yes — the Free plan supports 1 provider with 30-day retention, forever. The Pro plan ($19/mo) adds unlimited providers, alerts, anomaly detection, and 1-year retention. Team plans start at $49/mo for collaborative monitoring.

Don't wait

Don't wait for the proxy to go dark.

Join the teams migrating from Helicone to LLMeter. Set up in 30 seconds — no proxy, no SDK, no code changes. Free forever for 1 provider.

No credit card required · Free plan never expires