# Helicone: how AI models rank it, November 2026

Gane Index, November 2026 Edition. Named in 16 judge labels across 1 category by 7 of 14 models. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/vendors/helicone

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [LLM gateways and observability](https://www.gane.ai/index/it/it-data/llm-gateways-and-observability/index.md) | 4% | 4 | 6% | 16 |

## What the models said for it

- "My top pick for a typical mid-sized B2B company: Start with Helicone." (Qwen 3.7 Flash, LLM gateways)
- "I recommend Helicone as the best all-around choice" (Kimi K2, LLM gateways)
- "Excellent observability, caching, and cost analytics | Stronger on monitoring than routing; paid plans for advanced usage" (Grok 4.20, LLM gateways)
- "Lightweight proxy-based option—very quick to set up (one-line change)." (Grok 4.20, LLM gateways)

## And against it

- "Managed/third-party hosted gateways with weak privacy controls (e.g., some observability-focused ones like early PromptLayer or Helicone variants)" (Grok 4.20, LLM gateways)

## By model

| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

## Sources returned with these answers

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Helicone, from 50 of the 58 answers that named it (only the models that return a source list).

### Domains cited

- getmaxim.ai: 28
- dev.to: 26
- github.com: 21
- orq.ai: 14
- dataiku.com: 12
- braintrust.dev: 11
- llmgateway.io: 10
- respan.ai: 10
- fastrouter.ai: 9
- litellm.ai: 9

### Pages cited

- https://dataiku.com/blog/best-llm-gateways: 12
- https://orq.ai/blog/best-llm-observability-tools: 9
- https://dev.to/ericthompson21/when-is-a-managed-llm-gateway-worth-its-cost-5959: 7
- https://cloudzero.com/blog/llm-gateways: 6
- https://llmgateway.io/: 6
- https://orq.ai/blog/best-llm-gateways: 6
- https://respan.ai/articles/best-llm-gateways: 6
- https://dev.to/anthonymax/best-enterprise-ai-gateways-33pp: 5

## In its own words

What Helicone's own pages state, read 2026-09-28. Stated by the vendor, not checked by the index.

- Positioning: AI Gateway & LLM Observability (https://helicone.ai/)
- For: The world's fastest-growing AI companies (https://helicone.ai/)
- Price stated: Simple, predictable pricing (https://www.helicone.ai/pricing)
- Starting price: Free (https://www.helicone.ai/pricing)
- Free plan or trial: No credit card required, 7-day free trial (https://helicone.ai/)
- Integrations claimed: 8 (https://helicone.ai/)
- Certifications: HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II
- Customers named: Xpedia AI, DeepAI, Brand.dev, Sunrun, Cogna, Tusk, Wordware

## What it publishes

Every page helicone.ai exposes, read 2026-09-29: 5208 addresses. By kind, pages and the last 90 days:

- blog: 102 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest 2024-01-24
- report or ebook: 32 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- comparison: 3481 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- template or tool: 4 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- glossary or explainer: 1 pages, 0 in the last 90 days, latest undated
- Recent: 2024-01-24 blog: Easily share llm analytics with your https://blog.helicone.ai/p/easily-share-llm-analytics-with-your
- Recent: 2024-01-24 blog: Archive https://blog.helicone.ai/archive
- Recent: 2023-12-18 blog: Building a simple near real time https://blog.helicone.ai/p/building-a-simple-near-real-time
- Recent: 2023-11-30 blog: Every llm one platform introducing https://blog.helicone.ai/p/every-llm-one-platform-introducing
- Recent: 2023-10-10 blog: A letter to yc hopefuls https://blog.helicone.ai/p/a-letter-to-yc-hopefuls

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/it/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, November 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/it.