Helicone vs LangSmith
Detailed side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right tool
Helicone
🔴DeveloperLLM Observability
Open-source LLM observability and AI gateway — logs every prompt, response, cost, and latency across 20+ providers with a one-line proxy or async SDK, plus caching, retries, and prompt experiments.
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FreeLangSmith
🔴DeveloperAI Observability
LangSmith is LangChain's commercial observability, evaluation and prompt management platform for LLM apps and agents in production.
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FreeFeature Comparison
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💡 Our Take
Choose Helicone if you want open-source, provider-agnostic observability with simple proxy integration starting at $20/seat/month. Choose LangSmith if you're already invested in the LangChain/LangGraph ecosystem and need tight framework integration with built-in evaluation harnesses. Helicone wins on price transparency and zero-code setup; LangSmith wins on agent debugging depth for LangChain users.
Helicone - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓5-minute proxy integration captures full traces, cost, and latency across 20+ providers
- ✓Real AI gateway features (caching, retries, fallback, key vault) replace a custom proxy
- ✓MIT-licensed and self-hostable on Postgres + ClickHouse — passes regulated procurement
Cons
- ✗Proxy mode adds a network hop unless self-hosted in your own region
- ✗Prompt experiment UX is less mature than dedicated eval platforms like Braintrust
- ✗Self-hosting requires running ClickHouse, which is an extra ops surface
LangSmith - Pros & Cons
Pros
- ✓Best-in-class integration if you already use LangChain or LangGraph.
- ✓Eval suites are practical enough to actually gate releases on, not just dashboards.
- ✓Self-hosted Enterprise tier covers SOC 2 and regulated environments.
Cons
- ✗Per-trace pricing on Plus surprises teams that scale production traffic quickly.
- ✗Non-LangChain stacks work but trade ergonomic polish for SDK overhead.
- ✗Some eval features require additional LLM spend on top of the platform fee.
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