Helicone vs Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)
Both are alternatives to Portkey. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) vs Helicone — same comparison, one verdict.
Helicone and Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) are closely matched on ownership (88 vs 86) — this one comes down to pricing and to which trade-offs below you can live with.
Helicone
Gateway and observability in one proxy — Apache-2.0, now in maintenance under Mintlify.
Helicone is an open-source AI gateway and observability platform with logging, caching and cost tracking built into the proxy rather than added alongside it — the practical difference from LiteLLM, where observability is thin and usually paired with something else. The platform (Helicone/helicone) is Apache-2.0 and self-hostable as a set of containers; a separate Rust gateway (Helicone/ai-gateway) is GPL-3.0. Helicone joined Mintlify in March 2026 and is now maintained rather than developed: fixes continue, new features do not. Fine for a stable setup today; weigh it against actively developed options before building on it for years.
Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)
Portkey's own routing engine, MIT-licensed and running on your hardware.
Worth knowing before you buy the platform: Portkey publishes its gateway as open source under the MIT licence, so the routing engine — 250+ models, failover, load balancing, caching — can be self-hosted at no cost. What the subscription adds is the hosted control plane: dashboards, prompt management, guardrails, analytics and support. If your requirement is the routing and not the console, this is the same engine without the bill or the third-party data path.
Side by side
10 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| Helicone | Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 88 | 86 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first data | Yes | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Pricing | Free and self-hostable under Apache-2.0. The hosted service has a free tier of roughly 10,000 requests per month, with paid plans starting around $79/month. | Free — the gateway is MIT-licensed. You pay only your model providers and your own hosting. |
| RAM to run it wellThe figure that actually matters, not the vendor's minimum. | 8 GB. The all-in-one container runs the web dashboard, the Jawn API and proxy, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse and MinIO together, and ClickHouse's own sizing guide says total memory should not go below 8 GB. | — |
| Realistic running costWhat the box costs each month if you run it yourself. | $24–48/mo for a 4–8 GB VPS at DigitalOcean list prices (read 2026-09-30), less on budget hosts; your LLM provider bills are separate | — |
| Setup timeHonest first-install estimate, not the marketing quickstart. | 20 minutes on localhost with the all-in-one image; an afternoon on a server, where every URL variable must point at the public origin and HTTPS comes from a reverse proxy | — |
| Ongoing maintenanceThe part nobody budgets for. | Helicone has been in maintenance mode since Mintlify acquired it on 2026-03-03 — in Helicone's words, security updates, new models, and bug and performance fixes keep shipping. Budget for ClickHouse housekeeping and, eventually, a migration. | — |
Helicone edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Weighing both against staying on Portkey? Is Portkey free? What it actually costs →
Helicone
Strengths
- +The platform is Apache-2.0 and fully self-hostable
- +Routing and observability in one component — less to assemble
- +Proxy-based: nothing to instrument in your code to start
- +Hosted option if you would rather not run it
Trade-offs
- −Maintenance mode since the Mintlify acquisition (March 2026) — no new development
- −The separate Rust gateway is GPL-3.0, not Apache-2.0
- −Fewer providers supported than LiteLLM's 100+
- −The hosted tier means prompts transit a third party — the thing self-hosting avoided
Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)
Strengths
- +MIT licence on the full routing engine
- +Same 250+ model coverage as the hosted product
- +The lowest-friction exit from Portkey's paid tier — same engine, same config shape
- +No third party in the request path when self-hosted
Trade-offs
- −You lose the dashboards, prompt management and guardrails that justify the subscription
- −Development cadence is slower than LiteLLM's
- −Smaller self-hosting community, so fewer worked examples when something breaks
- −You are self-hosting a vendor's open core — feature direction still follows their commercial product
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Helicone
if a lower exit cost matters more to you than any single feature, and the platform is Apache-2.0 and fully self-hostable.
Choose Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)
if mIT licence on the full routing engine.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — maintenance mode since the Mintlify acquisition (March 2026) — no new development, and you lose the dashboards, prompt management and guardrails that justify the subscription. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
What it takes to run these yourself
Real requirements and honest running costs, not the vendor quickstart.
Helicone vs Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) — common questions
Is Helicone a better fit than Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) for llm gateways & routing?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Helicone scores 88 to Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)'s 86 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) earns its place on a different axis — mIT licence on the full routing engine. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
Helicone keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) is still self-hostable, so the files stay on your server either way — but it is not local-first by design, so check what its export produces before you rely on it.
Can I self-host Helicone or Portkey Gateway (self-hosted)?
Both can be self-hosted. The difference is what it costs you in time rather than whether it is possible — see the setup and maintenance rows above.
Are Helicone and Portkey Gateway (self-hosted) both alternatives to Portkey?
Yes — both appear in our Portkey comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off Portkey and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-07-30. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.