Agentic Index
AgentOps vs Helicone (2026)
Both vendors last verified
Both are open source friendly observability options with low entry cost, watching different layers. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
AgentOps watches the agent, with framework aware traces and devtools for debugging production behavior, free up to 5,000 events. Helicone watches the traffic, with every request logged, routed, cached and costed through one OpenAI compatible endpoint, free to 10,000 requests a month, then from $79. If your question is why the agent did that, AgentOps answers it. If it is what this costs and whether it can be cached, Helicone does.
On the Agentic Index agent infrastructure ranking, neither AgentOps nor Helicone clears the bar, which asks for all five production contract capabilities documented in full. AgentOps documents two of the five in full; Helicone does not document testing, debugging and optimization in full. 33 of the 186 vendors in the lane clear it. See the agent infrastructure ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. AgentOps and Helicone are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,084 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose AgentOps if
- Agent behavior is the mystery, and traces need to understand frameworks and tool calls.
- You want devtools for debugging rather than a gateway in the request path.
- Framework breadth across how your team builds agents matters.
Choose Helicone if
- Cost visibility and caching are the reason you are looking, and the gateway pays for itself.
- One OpenAI compatible endpoint in front of everything simplifies your architecture.
- You want logging without instrumenting application code.
| Feature | A AgentOps |
H Helicone |
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| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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AgentOpsIntegrations & Tool Calling The major agent frameworks and providers are instrumented natively, including AG2, Agno, CrewAI, the OpenAI Agents SDK, LangChain and LlamaIndex, and AgentOps traces the tool calls those agents make. These integrations bring trace data in, and none connects an agent to a real system to take actions. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (integrations) and agentops.ai homepageread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeIntegrations & Tool Calling Model providers connect through the gateway. Helicone also works with frameworks such as the Vercel AI SDK, LiteLLM, OpenRouter and CrewAI, sends webhooks out, and offers a Zapier app that runs chat completions through the gateway. These route model traffic and send events. None of them connects an agent to a real system to take actions. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (integrations, webhooks, Zapier, web search)read 2026-09-21 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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AgentOpsWorkflow Orchestration Multi agent workflows the customer runs are visualized from their traces, with operations tied to named agents. AgentOps does not run workflows of its own, and nothing in it sequences, branches or retries steps or combines deterministic nodes with agent steps. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (tracking agents, recording operations) and agentops.ai homepageread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeWorkflow Orchestration Per request, the gateway routes and falls back between providers, and prompts are assembled from versioned templates at call time. There are no workflows that sequence, branch or retry agent steps, or that combine deterministic nodes with agent steps. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (provider routing, prompt assembly)read 2026-09-21 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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AgentOpsTriggers & Channel Coverage When the customer's instrumented code runs, traces arrive and appear in the dashboard. AgentOps names no schedule, event trigger, alert or automation that starts work on its own. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt and agentops.ai homepageread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeTriggers & Channel Coverage Alerts fire when an application crosses error thresholds or cost limits. Automated weekly reports deliver usage, cost and performance summaries to email or Slack, and webhooks send request events to the customer's endpoints. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (alerts, reports, webhooks) and helicone.ai/pricingread 2026-09-21 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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AgentOpsKnowledge Grounding & RAG Calls a customer's agents make are traced, including retrieval steps where the customer instruments them. AgentOps names no document ingestion, index, retrieval layer or knowledge API that grounds an agent in company data. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txtread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeKnowledge Grounding & RAG Model traffic is routed and logged, web search can be added to Anthropic models through the gateway, and datasets hold logged requests for evaluation and fine tuning. There is no document ingestion, index, retrieval layer or knowledge API that grounds an agent in company data. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (web search, datasets)read 2026-09-21 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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AgentOpsMemory & State Persistence Traces, sessions and completions are stored as records of the customer's agent runs. AgentOps names no session, workflow or long term memory that an agent reads and writes. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (traces, core concepts)read 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeMemory & State Persistence Logged requests, sessions and prompt versions persist, and the gateway can automatically clear old tool uses and thinking blocks from long running agent sessions. Agents get no session, workflow or long term memory to read and write. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (sessions, context editing)read 2026-09-21 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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AgentOpsHuman Oversight & Guardrails Logs, errors and prompt injection attacks leave a data trail, and runs can be replayed for review. AgentOps names no approval step, consent checkpoint, runtime guardrail or pause and resume control over an agent's actions. SourceAgentOps, agentops.ai homepage and docs.agentops.ai/llms.txtread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeHuman Oversight & Guardrails With LLM Security enabled, Helicone screens each user message with Meta's Prompt Guard, and optionally Llama Guard across 14 threat categories. It blocks detected threats with an error response before the request is processed. Moderation filters harmful content, and custom rate limits cap requests by count or cost. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/features/advanced-usage/llm-security and llms.txt (moderations, custom rate limits); docs.helicone.ai/features/advanced-usage/llm-security.mdread 2026-09-21 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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AgentOpsSecurity, Identity & Governance The Pro plan adds role based permissioning, and the Enterprise plan adds custom SSO, a custom data retention policy and on premise or self hosted deployment. Self hosting lets a customer apply its own security policies. The plans mention compliance standards, with no published report or auditor behind them. SourceAgentOps, agentops.ai homepage pricing section and docs.agentops.ai/v2/self-hosting/overviewread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeSecurity, Identity & Governance SAML SSO comes on the Enterprise plan, with identity integration through the customer's own provider, and each plan sets its organizations and seats. SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance come from the Team plan up, with InfoSec reviews and customized MSAs on Enterprise. Provider keys are encrypted, data sits in EU or US regions, and retention is configurable. Helicone names no roles or permissions inside an organization. SourceHelicone, helicone.ai/pricing and docs.helicone.ai/references/data-autonomyread 2026-10-01 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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AgentOpsObservability & Auditability Each agent run is recorded as a trace of spans for LLM calls, tool calls, operations and named agents, with the host environment captured automatically. The dashboard replays runs step by step with point in time precision, visualizes multi agent interactions and tracks tokens and cost. The Pro plan adds session and event export and unlimited log retention. A read only public API and an MCP server expose trace and span data. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (traces, spans, host environment, public API, MCP server) and agentops.ai homepageread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeObservability & Auditability Every request through the gateway or SDK is logged with prompt, completion, tokens, cost, latency and errors. Helicone groups them into sessions for agents and pipelines, adds user analytics and custom properties, and lets teams query analytics directly with HQL, a SQL interface with row level security. Data export is available. Retention runs 7 days on Hobby, 1 month on Pro, 3 months on Team and indefinitely on Enterprise, where it is also configurable. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (sessions, HQL, data export) and helicone.ai/pricingread 2026-09-21 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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AgentOpsDeployment & Data Residency Customers can use the hosted service or self host the whole platform (API server, dashboard, Supabase and ClickHouse data layers and an OpenTelemetry collector) on their own servers or cloud through Docker Compose, Kubernetes or deployment to AWS, GCP and Azure, so data stays on their own infrastructure. The Enterprise plan adds on premise deployment, self hosting on AWS, GCP and Azure, and a custom data retention policy. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/v2/self-hosting/overview and agentops.ai homepage; docs.agentops.ai/v2/self-hosting/overview.mdread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeDeployment & Data Residency Customers choose an EU or US region for data residency on Helicone Cloud. The open source platform self hosts with Docker or Kubernetes and Helm, and the Enterprise plan includes on premises deployment. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/references/data-autonomy and llms.txt (self-hosting, Docker, Kubernetes), and helicone.ai/pricing; docs.helicone.ai/references/data-autonomy.mdread 2026-09-21 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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AgentOpsPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Examples show how to instrument agents built with various frameworks, and AgentOps offers expert help building agents as a service. It names no ready made agents, templates or packaged workflows for customers to adopt. SourceAgentOps, agentops.ai homepage and docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (examples)read 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconePrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs A model registry and pricing data cover the models the gateway reaches, and cookbooks explain how to build agents. There are no ready made agents, templates or packaged workflows a customer adopts. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (model registry, cookbooks)read 2026-09-21 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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AgentOpsModel Flexibility & Routing More than 400 LLMs and frameworks that a customer's agents call can be traced and costed, and tracing does not constrain which model the agent uses. Customers do not choose, route or key any model the product itself runs, and AgentOps names no model policy. SourceAgentOps, agentops.ai homepage and docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (tracking LLM calls)read 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeModel Flexibility & Routing The Helicone AI Gateway gives one OpenAI compatible API across more than 100 providers, with automatic provider routing, fallbacks, caching and custom rate limits by request count or cost. Provider keys are stored encrypted in a vault, so customers bring their own keys or use gateway credits. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (AI Gateway overview, provider routing, error handling and fallback, custom rate limits) and docs.helicone.ai/references/data-autonomyread 2026-09-21 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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AgentOpsAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility AgentOps publishes open source Python and TypeScript SDKs with decorators, context managers and manual trace control, a read only HTTP public API for trace and span data, and an MCP server that exposes trace and span data to MCP clients, alongside an MCP docs server. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txt (SDK reference, TypeScript SDK, public API, MCP server)read 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility A REST API covers requests, sessions, scores, evaluations, prompts, webhooks and trace logging. Alongside it sit an OpenAI compatible gateway API, SDK integrations, webhooks, a Zapier app, and a Helicone MCP server that lets MCP compatible assistants query observability data. The codebase is open source. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (REST reference, MCP server, webhooks, Zapier)read 2026-09-21 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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AgentOpsTesting, Debugging & Optimization Teams debug agents by rewinding and replaying runs with point in time precision, and a data trail of errors and prompt injection attempts is kept. AgentOps also offers fine tuning of specialized models on saved completions as an optimization step after deployment. It names no testing against fixtures or datasets, configurable quality gates or scoring of output quality over time. SourceAgentOps, agentops.ai homepage and docs.agentops.ai/llms.txtread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeTesting, Debugging & Optimization Scores and user feedback on requests and sessions come in through the API. Helicone curates request data into datasets for fine tuning and evaluation, provides a playground and versioned prompts deployed through the gateway, and tracks score distributions over time. Customers cannot run an application against fixtures or datasets before production, and there are no configurable quality gates. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txt (eval scores, datasets, prompts, evaluations API) and helicone.ai/pricingread 2026-09-21 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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AgentOpsBrowser & Computer Use The product covers SDK instrumentation, tracing, the dashboard, a public API, an MCP server and self hosting. AgentOps names no browser, desktop or computer control by an agent. SourceAgentOps, docs.agentops.ai/llms.txtread 2026-09-21 |
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HeliconeBrowser & Computer Use The product covers observability, the AI Gateway, prompts, datasets, security features and self hosting. No agent controls a browser, desktop or computer. SourceHelicone, docs.helicone.ai/llms.txtread 2026-09-21 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | A AgentOps |
H Helicone |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Free up to 5,000 events · Pro from $40/mo · Enterprise custom | From $79/mo · free tier (10k requests/mo) + open source |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, exact | Public, exact |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
usage | Subscription tiers by features and seats, with usage based scaling above included request volume; AI Gateway billed as zero markup provider pass through |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Medium variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tier
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Free tierTrial
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Mixed | Mixed |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
Mintlify acquired Helicone on 3 March 2026, and Helicone now runs in maintenance mode, still shipping security updates, new models and fixes.
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