OpenLLMetry vs Helicone
Both are alternatives to LangSmith. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Helicone vs OpenLLMetry — same comparison, one verdict.
OpenLLMetry
Apache-2.0 OpenTelemetry instrumentation — send traces anywhere you already send them.
OpenLLMetry takes the opposite approach to a platform: it is a set of Apache-2.0 OpenTelemetry extensions that emit LLM traces in a standard format, so they flow into whatever you already run — Grafana, Datadog, Honeycomb, Jaeger or Traceloop's own hosted backend. If you already have observability infrastructure, this adds LLM visibility to it rather than asking you to adopt a second, parallel system. It is also the strongest hedge against lock-in: standard telemetry moves between backends by configuration.
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
| OpenLLMetry | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 92 | 88 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Pricing | Free — Apache-2.0 instrumentation libraries. You pay only whatever backend you already send telemetry to; a hosted Traceloop backend is available separately. | 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. |
OpenLLMetry edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
OpenLLMetry
Strengths
- +Apache-2.0 throughout — no enterprise-directory carve-out
- +Standard OpenTelemetry: traces go to a backend you already operate
- +The best protection against lock-in — switching backends is configuration
- +Reuses your existing observability stack instead of adding a parallel one
Trade-offs
- −Instrumentation, not a platform — no evaluation or prompt-management UI
- −You need a trace backend already, or you are choosing one anyway
- −Generic backends render LLM traces less legibly than a purpose-built UI
- −Smaller project (about 7k stars) than Langfuse
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.