head to head · open source
dagster vs Helicone
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars, 2,296 forks, 2,589 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Helicone has 6,165 stars, 672 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. dagster leads on adoption by 162% (16,183 vs 6,165 stars). dagster is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Helicone is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. dagster has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Helicone 11%. dagster was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (analytics), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| dagster | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 672 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dagster if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Helicone if
- You want the Helicone feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Helicone fits your workflow better
About dagster
Dagster is a cloud native data pipeline orchestrator written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for data engineers, data scientists, and machine learning teams who declare the tables, data sets, models, and reports their pipelines should produce and need those assets tested, observable, and kept up to date from local development through production.
read the full dagster overview →
About Helicone
Helicone is an open source AI gateway and LLM observability platform for AI engineers who need to monitor, evaluate, and experiment with applications built on large language models.
read the full Helicone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dagster or Helicone more popular?
dagster has 16,183 GitHub stars and Helicone has 6,165. dagster has the larger community by that measure.
Are dagster and Helicone free?
Both are open source. dagster is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Helicone under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dagster and Helicone?
dagster is written in Python and Helicone in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dagster or Helicone?
Choose dagster if you want the larger community (16,183 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Helicone if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.