Helicone and AgentBurn both help you understand LLM costs. But they approach the problem differently, and the right choice depends on your stack and priorities.
Architecture
Helicone is a proxy. You route your LLM API calls through Helicone's servers, and it logs everything automatically. Zero code changes — just swap the base URL. The downside: all your prompts and responses flow through a third party.
AgentBurn is an event collector. You send cost events to AgentBurn's API after each call. More instrumentation work, but your data stays in your infrastructure. And it tracks non-LLM costs (compute, tool calls) that a proxy can't see.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | AgentBurn | Helicone |
|---|---|---|
| LLM cost tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Non-LLM costs (compute, tools) | Yes | No |
| Self-hosted option | Yes (MIT) | Yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Proxy mode (zero-code) | No | Yes |
| Per-agent breakdown | Yes | Limited |
| Budget alerts | Yes | Yes |
| Prompt caching | No | Yes |
| A/B testing | No | Yes |
When to Choose AgentBurn
- You run multi-provider agent stacks (LLMs + compute + tools)
- You want a lightweight, self-hosted cost dashboard
- You need per-agent budget allocation and alerts
- You don't want prompts flowing through a third-party proxy
- You want MIT-licensed open source
When to Choose Helicone
- You want zero-instrumentation setup (proxy model)
- You need prompt caching and A/B testing
- You primarily use a single LLM provider
- You want detailed prompt/response logging alongside costs
Pricing
Both have free tiers. AgentBurn's Community tier is free forever (self-hosted, MIT). Helicone's free tier includes 100K requests/month. AgentBurn Pro is $39/month; Helicone's Growth tier starts at $70/month.
For cost-focused teams running multi-provider agent stacks, AgentBurn offers better value. For teams wanting a full observability platform with minimal setup, Helicone is strong.