head to head · open source
Langfuse vs Helicone
Langfuse has 36,970 GitHub stars, 4,150 forks, 926 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Helicone has 6,259 stars, 702 forks, 156 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Langfuse leads on adoption by 491% (36,970 vs 6,259 stars). Langfuse is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Helicone is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Langfuse has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Helicone 11%. Langfuse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 9 topic tags (analytics, evaluation, langchain, large-language-models), 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
| Langfuse | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 702 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Langfuse if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 Langfuse
Langfuse Cloud · Self Host · Demo Docs · Report Bug · Feature Request · Changelog · Roadmap · Langfuse is an open source LLM engineering platform. It helps teams collaboratively develop, monitor, evaluate, and debug AI applications. Langfuse can be self hosted in minutes and is battle tested . Proudly made with ClickHouse open source database. 🧑💻 We're hiring Langfuse is growing fast (we doubled the team in the last 6 months) since January 2026 we're part of ClickHouse, we're hiring engineering hybrid across the EU. We hire engineers who love open source and great developer experiences. See open roles → ✨…
read the full Langfuse overview →
About Helicone
Docs • Changelog • Bug reports • See Helicone in Action! (Free) Helicone is an AI Gateway & LLM Observability Platform for AI Engineers 🌐 AI Gateway : Access 100+ AI models with 1 API key through the OpenAI API with intelligent routing and automatic fallbacks. Get started in 2 minutes. 🔌 Quick integration : One line of code to log all your requests from OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, Gemini, Vercel AI SDK, and more. 📊 Observe : Inspect and debug traces & sessions for agents, chatbots, document processing pipelines, and more 📈 Analyze : Track metrics like cost, latency, quality, and more. Export to PostHog in…
read the full Helicone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Langfuse or Helicone more popular?
Langfuse has 36,970 GitHub stars and Helicone has 6,259. Langfuse has the larger community by that measure.
Are Langfuse and Helicone free?
Both are open source. Langfuse has no licence declared in this registry, and Helicone is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Langfuse and Helicone?
Langfuse is written in TypeScript 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, Langfuse or Helicone?
Choose Langfuse if you want the larger community (36,970 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Helicone if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.