Helicone vs LangSmith
Two of the most-asked-about agents in the developer-tools space. Here's how they actually stack up.
Helicone
LLM observability and cost monitoring for production AI applications
Free tier
Read full review →LangSmith
LLM observability, testing, and evaluation platform from the LangChain team
Free tier
Read full review →Side-by-side comparison
| Helicone | LangSmith | |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | LLM observability and cost monitoring for production AI applications | LLM observability, testing, and evaluation platform from the LangChain team |
| Pricing | Free tier | Free tier |
| Categories | developer-tools, api, productivity | developer-tools, api, productivity |
| Made by | Helicone | LangChain |
| Launched | 2023-06 | 2023-09 |
| Platforms | Web, API | Web, API |
| Status | active | active |
Helicone highlights
- + One-line integration via proxy URL change, no SDK required
- + Real-time cost tracking per model, user, and custom property
- + Request and response logging with full prompt and output capture
- + Latency monitoring and percentile breakdowns by model and endpoint
- + User segmentation: track costs and usage per end-user or organization
LangSmith highlights
- + Full trace logging for LLM chains with nested step visibility
- + Dataset management: build eval datasets from production traces
- + Automated evaluation with LLM-as-judge scoring
- + Human annotation queues for labeling and quality review
- + Prompt hub for storing and versioning prompts
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Helicone or LangSmith?
Neither is universally better. Helicone (Free tier) leans into developer-tools, while LangSmith (Free tier) is closer to developer-tools. Pick based on which workflow you actually do every day.
What is the price difference between Helicone and LangSmith?
Helicone is free tier. LangSmith is free tier. See the pricing row in the comparison table.
Can I use Helicone and LangSmith together?
In most cases, yes. They serve overlapping but distinct needs, so running them side by side is common until you decide which fits your workflow.