Cloudflare AI Gateway vs Helicone
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Cloudflare AI Gateway
LLM proxy with free caching, rate limits and spend caps across provide...
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Helicone
Open-source LLM observability, now in maintenance mode
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.7 / 10 | 7.6 / 10 |
| Capability | ||
| Value for money | ||
| Ease of use | ||
| ASEAN readiness | ||
| API quality | ||
| Pricing | Freemium | Open Source |
| Free tier | Analytics, caching, rate limiting, spend limits and two DLP profiles free on all plans; new accounts' logs: 200,000 events a day, 3-day retention | Apache-2.0 open-source stack, free to self-host with Docker; maintenance-only updates. Hosted Hobby tier (10,000 requests/mo) is closed to new sign-ups |
| Paid from | Free core; logs, Logpush, Guardrails cost via Workers Paid ($5/mo) or usage; 5% fee on credits | Hosted Pro listed at $79/mo, but new sign-ups have been disabled since March 2026 |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✓ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | — | — |
| Founded | 2023 | 2023 |
| Maker | Cloudflare, Inc. | Mintlify (acquired March 2026) |
| Verdict | AI Gateway puts a free control layer in front of LLM API calls: one endpoint for many providers, with token and cost analytics, exact-match caching, rate limiting, spend limits, retries and model fallback. Inference is p... |
Helicone was one of the lowest-friction ways to see what your LLM calls cost. Since Mintlify acquired it in March 2026 it has been in maintenance mode, with security fixes and new-model support but no new features, and n... |
| Full review → | Full review → |
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Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.