Helicone alternative

AIgateway: the best Helicone alternative in 2026

The best Helicone alternative in 2026 is AIgateway. Helicone is an observability proxy — it logs what you send to providers. AIgateway is a real aggregator: one key reaches 100+ models across every modality, with observability built-in plus eval-driven routing, caching, and a sub-account API that Helicone doesn't ship.

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Feature comparison

AIgateway vs Helicone

Side-by-side on the dimensions that move a production decision.

Feature

AIgateway

Helicone

Aggregator (one catalog, one key)

Yes — 100+ models

No — pure proxy

Eval-driven routing

Yes

Semantic cache

Yes — billed at 10% of uncached

Basic cache only

Sub-account API

Yes

Video / music / voice

Yes

No — text + image observability

Replay / shadow A/B

Yes on every logged request

Logs only

Open source

No (managed SaaS)

Yes — OSS + cloud

Feature comparison reflects public documentation as of 2026. Helicone pricing shape: Free tier plus per-event pricing for observability.. Catalog: Pass-through proxy — whatever providers you wire up..

Migrate in 5 minutes

Three steps. One base URL.

If you're on Helicone through the OpenAI SDK, you're 90% of the way there. Change the base URL and the key.

STEP 01

Sign up for AIgateway

Create an account at aigateway.sh/signin and copy an sk-aig-... key from the dashboard.

STEP 02

Swap base URL + key

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.aigateway.sh/v1",
    api_key="sk-aig-...",
)

STEP 03

Ship

Request shape, response shape, streaming SSE — identical to OpenAI. Model slugs map 1:1 on shared providers. Helicone users typically migrate in under 5 minutes.

4 other alternatives

Other Helicone alternatives worth checking

Honest take: here are four other credible options. None ship the full multi-modal catalog + sub-accounts + evals under one key, but each has a legit wedge.

#2 — LLM router

OpenRouter

Text-LLM aggregator with ~300 model routes.

Closed source · ~300 text-only models.

Read the full OpenRouter comparison →

#3 — Governance gateway

Portkey

LLM gateway-as-a-service focused on governance and observability.

Partially open source · ~40 models, mostly text + some image.

Read the full Portkey comparison →

#4 — LLM router

Requesty

Cost-aware text-LLM router.

Closed source · ~50 text models.

Read the full Requesty comparison →

#5 — Eval platform

Braintrust

AI evaluation platform with a proxied inference layer.

Partially open source · Proxies upstream providers; no first-party multi-modal catalog.

Read the full Braintrust comparison →

FAQ

Common questions about Helicone alternatives

Is Helicone open source?

Yes — Helicone has an open-source core plus a managed cloud. AIgateway is closed-source but OpenAI-compatible.

Does Helicone charge markups?

Helicone charges per-event fees on its observability proxy. AIgateway charges a flat 5% at credit top-up.

Can Helicone route between models?

Helicone is primarily an observability layer — it proxies and logs what you send. AIgateway adds real routing: eval-driven alias binding, health-based failover, and modality-aware dispatch.

Does Helicone support non-text modalities?

Helicone focuses on text and image LLM observability. AIgateway covers video, voice, audio, music, and embeddings first-class.

Is there a free tier on AIgateway?

Yes — 100 requests/day on Kimi K2.6. No card required.

Can I use AIgateway as a drop-in Helicone replacement?

For routing + logs, yes — one base_url swap. If you rely on Helicone's custom properties and prompt versioning UI, plan a light migration.