Helicone vs Portkey
A side-by-side comparison of Helicone and Portkey, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Helicone | Portkey |
|---|---|---|
| Category (differs) | Observability | Inference |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License | Open core | Open core |
| Deployment | Hybrid | Hybrid |
| Platforms | API, Web | API, Web |
| Model support (differs) | Model-agnostic | Multi-model |
| Vendor (differs) | Helicone | Portkey |
The honest brief
Helicone
Fastest setup in the category: change one base URL, no SDK, and the open-source proxy can be self-hosted.
- No SDK or code changes to integrate
- Open source, self-hostable
- Built-in caching and rate-limit handling
- Multi-provider gateway
- Request/response focused, not span-based
- Weaker multi-step agent tracing
- Proxy adds a network hop
- Lighter eval tooling than Langfuse
Portkey
Open-source AI gateway to 1,600+ LLMs with built-in observability, guardrails, and governance — self-host, hybrid, or managed cloud.
- One API across many providers
- Routing, caching, and fallbacks
- Cost limits and PII redaction
- Guardrails, RBAC, and MCP gateway
- Acquired by Palo Alto Networks (closed 2025)
- Future roadmap may shift to Prisma AIRS
- Advanced governance gated to paid tiers