H

Helicone

Infrastructure

Open-source LLM observability platform, now in maintenance mode after being acquired by Mintlify (announced 2026-03-03) -- security updates, new models and bug fixes keep shipping, and its founders have joined Mintlify.

Acquired by Mintlify (2026)

Total funding—

Valuation—

Employees—

Founded2023

HeadquartersSan Francisco, USA

StatusAcquired

Products

Selected offerings — the AI products recorded here, not the vendor's full catalogue.

• Helicone Platform Sold on its own

  Open-source LLM observability platform for logging, monitoring and debugging LLM API calls -- now in maintenance mode after Helicone's acquisition by Mintlify; new customers are directed to migrate rather than adopt it.

Inside Helicone

• Helicone AI Gateway API service Included with the parent

  OpenAI-compatible unified API routing to 100+ models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Vertex, Groq and more) through Helicone's platform.

Closest alternatives 1

LLangfuseAcquiredHelicone's own official comparison blog post against Langfuse.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeSourced competitorBuild and run AI agentsCompare

Similar products 50

How this list is ranked ↗

W&Weights & BiasesAcquiredHelicone and W&B Weave both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; both acquired, so no independent scale on either side.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareEElasticPublic · $10.2BHelicone and Elastic LLM Observability both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareDDatabricksPrivate · $190BHelicone and Agent Bricks both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareBBraintrustPrivate · $125M raisedHelicone and Braintrust both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareDDeepchecksAbsorbedHelicone and Deepchecks LLM Evaluation both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Deepchecks is absorbed, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareGGalileoAcquired ($68M deal)Helicone and Galileo both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; both acquired, so no independent scale on either side.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareFAFiddler AIPrivate · $100M raisedHelicone and Fiddler AI both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareBBasetenPrivate · $13BHelicone AI Gateway and Baseten Frontier Gateway do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareOOllamaPrivate · $88M raisedHelicone AI Gateway and Ollama Cloud do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships infrastructure service and model API rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareHFHugging FacePrivate · $4.5BHelicone AI Gateway and Inference Providers both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareAAArthur AIPrivate · $62.7M raisedHelicone and Arthur both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareHCHuawei CloudPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and MaaS do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Huawei Cloud's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareMModularAcquired ($3.1B deal)Helicone AI Gateway and Modular Cloud do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; both acquired, so no independent scale on either side; ships developer tool and infrastructure service rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareNGNebius GroupPublic · $61.6BHelicone AI Gateway and Nebius Token Factory do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships developer tool, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareCMComet MLPrivate · $70M raisedHelicone and Opik both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareCCrusoePrivate · $10BHelicone AI Gateway and Crusoe Managed Inference do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareLLambdaPrivate · $1.5B raisedHelicone AI Gateway and Lambda Inference do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships infrastructure service and model API rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareAAArize AIPrivateHelicone and Arize AX both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Arize AI's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareRRunPodPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and Runpod Hub do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; RunPod's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareCCore42PrivateHelicone AI Gateway and Core42 Compass both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Core42's scale not recorded.Shared product typeCompareCCivitaiPrivate · $5.1M raisedHelicone AI Gateway and Civitai API do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareRReplicatePrivateHelicone AI Gateway and Replicate do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Replicate's scale not recorded; ships infrastructure service rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareCClickHousePrivate · $1.1B raisedHelicone and ClickStack both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareFAFireworks AIPrivate · $17.5BHelicone AI Gateway and Fireworks Inference do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareNCNAVER CloudPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and Papago Translation both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; NAVER Cloud's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareKEKakao EnterprisePrivateHelicone AI Gateway and Kubeflow do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Kakao Enterprise's scale not recorded.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareMMicrosoftPublic · $3.7THelicone AI Gateway and Foundry Models do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareVVercelPrivate · $9.3BHelicone AI Gateway and Vercel AI Gateway do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareTATogether AIPrivate · $8.3BHelicone AI Gateway and Together Inference both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareMModalPrivate · $466M raisedHelicone AI Gateway and Modal Inference do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships developer tool and infrastructure service rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareFFalPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and fal Serverless do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Fal's scale not recorded; ships AI agent, infrastructure service and 1 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareLLangChainPrivate · $160M raisedHelicone and LangSmith both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareVVMwareAcquiredHelicone AI Gateway and VMware Cloud Foundation Private AI Services do comparable work on model hosting; both acquired, so no independent scale on either side; ships infrastructure service rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareSSplunkAcquiredHelicone and Splunk Observability Cloud both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; both acquired, so no independent scale on either side.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareNNVIDIAPublic · $5.1THelicone and NVIDIA NeMo both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.2 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareDDatadogPublic · $84.9BHelicone and Agent Observability both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships AI agent, agent platform and 2 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareMPMeta PlatformsPublic · $1.5THelicone AI Gateway and Meta Model API do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships AI agent, agent platform and 2 more rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareDDecartPrivate · $4BHelicone AI Gateway and Cogito do comparable work on model hosting; both also serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareHAHume AIPrivateHelicone and Kairos Platform both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Hume AI's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareYYandexPublicHelicone AI Gateway and Yandex Translate both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Yandex's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareNRNous ResearchPrivate · $70M raisedHelicone AI Gateway and Nous Portal both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareAAlibabaPublic · $273.4BHelicone AI Gateway and Alibaba Cloud Machine Translation both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareLLovablePrivate · $13.3BHelicone AI Gateway and Lovable Cloud do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareBByteDancePrivateHelicone and Coze Loop both serve buyers who need to watch an AI agent for suspicious or runaway behaviour; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ByteDance's scale not recorded.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareCCoherePrivate · $7BHelicone AI Gateway and Model Vault do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareHHuaweiPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and MindIE do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; Huawei's scale not recorded; ships developer tool and hardware rather than the same layer.2 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompareOOpenRouterPrivate · $1.3BHelicone AI Gateway and OpenRouter both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; ships developer tool and model API rather than the same layer.Different layerCompareAAMDPublic · $785.1BHelicone AI Gateway and AMD Enterprise AI Reference Stack do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareKKuaishouPublic · $18.6BHelicone AI Gateway and Kling AI Developer API both serve buyers who need to build on a hosted model API; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale.1 of 2 capabilitiesShared product typeCompareLSLM StudioPrivateHelicone AI Gateway and LM Studio do comparable work on model hosting; Helicone is acquired, with no independent scale; LM Studio's scale not recorded; ships AI agent and application rather than the same layer.1 of 2 capabilitiesDifferent layerCompare

Closest alternatives are pairs a vendor page itself compares. Similar products are matched from what each product does; nothing in that group is asserted as a rivalry.

Sources

Founded

Company disclosure · 31 Aug 2026

Helicone's own Y Combinator company profile (self-authored, not an aggregator estimate): "Founded:2023", part of the Winter 2023 batch.

Status

Press release · 3 Mar 2026

Mintlify's own announcement, 2026-03-03: Helicone "will continue operating in maintenance mode -- security updates, bug fixes, and new models will keep shipping," customers are told to migrate, and its founders joined Mintlify in San Francisco. Unlike Langfuse and Weights & Biases, this is a wind-down rather than a brand that survived -- recorded as status: acquired (the closest vocabulary term; org-status.json has no separate wind-down state) but the description states the maintenance-mode fact plainly so a reader cannot read this as a live option to shortlist. Mintlify is now in this directory (founded/headquarters sourced from its own YC profile, funding_total/valuation from its own Series B post) and an acquired relation edge (mintlify -> helicone) has been added.

Description

Company disclosure · 6 Sep 2026

The acquisition post says "Helicone's services will remain live for the foreseeable future in maintenance mode. This means security updates, new models, bug & performance fixes all keep shipping", and offers migration help only "if you ever need anything". Nobody is directed anywhere. Maintenance mode itself is confirmed and stays, because it affects whether a reader should choose it.

Open Helicone in the directory

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