Langfuse vs Helicone
Both are alternatives to LangSmith. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Helicone vs Langfuse — same comparison, one verdict.
Langfuse
TOP PICKThe self-hosted default for LLM tracing — MIT core, framework-agnostic.
Langfuse is the most widely adopted open LLM observability platform: tracing, evaluation, prompt management and cost tracking, deployable with Docker on your own infrastructure so traces containing customer data never leave your network. It is deliberately framework-agnostic — LangChain, LlamaIndex, the provider SDKs directly, or OpenTelemetry — which makes it the natural exit from a LangChain-shaped tool. At 32k stars with commits landing daily it is the healthiest project in this category. Licensing needs precision: the core is MIT Expat, while the ee/ directories carry a separate enterprise licence.
Helicone
Gateway and observability in one — one integration instead of two.
Helicone is an Apache-2.0 AI gateway with logging, cost tracking and caching built into the routing layer, which makes it a genuine two-birds option: point your client at Helicone and you get both the gateway and the observability without instrumenting your application code at all. That proxy-based approach is the practical distinction — nothing to add to your codebase, at the cost of only seeing what passes through the proxy.
Side by side
| Langfuse | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 90 | 88 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT Expat (core); ee/ directories under a separate enterprise licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Pricing | Free to self-host — Docker Compose or Kubernetes, costs are your own infrastructure. A managed cloud with a free tier and paid plans exists if you would rather not run it. | Free and self-hostable under Apache-2.0. Hosted service has a free tier of roughly 10,000 requests per month, with paid plans starting around $79/month. |
Langfuse is Macrostack's recommended LangSmith alternative, so it's our pick here.
Langfuse
Strengths
- +Self-hosted: prompts and completions stay inside your network
- +Framework-agnostic — not tied to any one orchestration library
- +Tracing, evals, prompt management and cost tracking in one tool
- +32k stars and daily commits — the most active project in this category
Trade-offs
- −Self-hosting means running Postgres, ClickHouse and the collector yourself
- −The MIT core stops at the ee/ directories; SSO and some enterprise features sit behind a separate licence
- −Evaluation tooling is less polished than LangSmith's if you live inside LangChain
- −Trace storage grows fast — retention policy is your problem to plan
Helicone
Strengths
- +Apache-2.0, fully self-hostable
- +Proxy-based — no code instrumentation needed to start
- +Gateway and observability in one component
- +Real free tier on the hosted version for evaluating it
Trade-offs
- −Only sees traffic through the proxy — no visibility into internal agent steps
- −Weaker evaluation tooling than Langfuse or LangSmith
- −Smaller project (about 6k stars)
- −Adds a proxy hop to every model call
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-07-30. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.