Looking for a Helicone alternative? How Argosvix differs
Helicone is a solid open-source LLM observability tool and AI gateway: swap your baseURL and every request is logged, with self-hosting under Apache-2.0. In March 2026 the team joined Mintlify, and the service moved to maintenance mode — security updates, new model support and bug fixes continue, but no future feature development has been announced.
This page is a factual comparison for people who use or evaluated Helicone and are deciding what to build on next. Where Helicone clearly wins — self-hosting above all — we say so.
The short version
Helicone fits you if
- Self-hosting an Apache-2.0 open-source stack is a hard requirement
- You mainly want a gateway: one baseURL swap, 100+ models, failover included
- A tool in maintenance mode is acceptable as long as the lights stay on
Argosvix fits you if
- You want the watching delegated: an AI scans your records every 15 minutes and files findings in an approval inbox
- You want to operate observability in conversation — 87 MCP tools, more than half of which can write (alerts, budgets, prompts, approvals)
- You want flat individual pricing: about $13/month for up to 1,000,000 calls, no usage meter
- You want a tool that is actively shipping new capability
Difference 1: proxy in the request path vs. wrap outside it
Helicone's main integration is a proxy: you point your baseURL at their gateway, which makes setup genuinely effortless and adds routing and failover. The trade-off is that the proxy sits in your request path — every production call flows through it.
Argosvix wraps your provider client in one line (wrap(new OpenAI())). Recording happens beside the call, best-effort by design: if recording ever fails, your LLM call still succeeds, and there is no extra hop in the critical path.
Difference 2: maintenance mode vs. active development
This is the uncomfortable question after any acquisition:
“Will this tool still be improving a year from now?”
“Who do I file a feature request with?”
Helicone's own announcement promises security updates, new models and bug fixes — a responsible wind-down of feature work, not an abandonment. Argosvix is in the opposite phase: the AI-watching pillar, safety classification, evals and the MCP surface have all shipped within the last few months.
Difference 3: pricing shape
| Argosvix | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 50,000 calls/month, 30-day retention | 10,000 requests/month, 7-day retention (as of July 2026) |
| Paid | About $13/month flat (1,000,000 calls, 90-day retention, no usage meter) | Pro $79/month + usage; Team $799/month (as of July 2026) |
| Self-hosting | Not offered (SaaS only) | Yes — Apache-2.0, Docker/Helm deploys |
If self-hosting is the requirement, Helicone wins that row outright. If you want a predictable individual bill, a flat plan with no usage meter is the difference you feel monthly.
Difference 4: what the MCP server can do
Both products have an MCP server, which already puts Helicone ahead of most of the field. Helicone's tools let an AI query your observability data: search requests, inspect sessions, pull cost and latency.
Argosvix treats MCP as the primary interface, not a viewer: 87 tools of which more than half write — create and silence alerts, raise budgets, deploy and roll back prompts, run evals, approve or reject proposed actions. The goal is that you never need to open a dashboard at all.
Migrating
Point your baseURL back at the provider and add one line: wrap(new OpenAI()). npx @argosvix/cli init sets up the API key, SDK and MCP config in one command, and the free tier needs no card.