Portkey vs Helicone
Seven of fourteen models named Portkey first on the direct prompt; one named Helicone. Portkey was named by fourteen of the fourteen models and Helicone by twelve and Portkey carries 53 labels and Helicone 27, so the shares are not directly comparable.
Named in four categories this edition.
Named in one category this edition.
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts over all fourteen models, for a mid-market B2B company; rank is within the category; every quote names the model and the prompt it came from. Both figures come from the LLM gateways and observability page.
By framing
PortkeyFirst choices, of fourteen modelsHelicone
Across every category in the October 2026 Edition, Portkey and Helicone were named in the same answer seventy times, of the 175 answers naming Portkey and the 80 naming Helicone. In those answers Helicone took the first choice four times and Portkey twenty-two.
Every model, every framing
| Model | Direct | Paraphrase | Comparative | Budget-constrained | Scale-constrained | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-5.4 mini | | | | | ||
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | | | | | | |
| Perplexity Sonar | | | | |||
| Grok 4.20 | | | | | | |
| Mistral Small | | | ||||
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | | | | | | |
| Llama 4 Maverick | | |||||
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | | | | | ||
| Kimi K2 | | | | |||
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | | | | |||
| MiniMax M2.5 | | | | |||
| GPT-6 Luna | | | ||||
| Muse Glimmer 30B | | | | |
Portkey Helicone first choice named as an alternative argued againstblank: not namedEach cell is one answer, Portkey on the left and Helicone on the right.The direct prompt
Portkey first, Helicone an alternative
7 of 14 modelsHelicone was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Helicone first, Portkey not the choice
1 of 14 modelsPortkey was named in the answer but not as the choice, or not at all.Neither was the first choice, one was named
2 of 14 modelsThe answer put something else first and named one of the two as an alternative.Neither was named
4 of 14 modelsThe answer made no first choice from these two in this category.Bold names in an answer are the products the judge labeled a first choice; a model naming several gives each of them that label. The full answer text for every row is in the record.
By buyer segment
Portkey28%#2 of 7Helicone5%#5 of 7Portkey26%#1 of 8Helicone2%#5 of 8What the models said about Portkey
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“avoid Portkey hosted due to CVEs and black-box concerns” DeepSeek V4 Flash · negative prompt · hard negative
“its paid plans start at $49/month, so it is usually less attractive than LiteLLM or OpenRouter for the tightest budgets” Perplexity Sonar · budget prompt · soft negative
“Acquired by Palo Alto Networks in May 2026, which introduces some roadmap uncertainty” MiniMax M2.5 · negative prompt · soft negative
“Go with Portkey if you want an all-in-one platform that's enterprise-ready with strong compliance certifications.” MiniMax M2.5 · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“If you prefer a managed service so your team can focus strictly on building product features, choose Portkey.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“Great all-rounder. Excellent balance between enterprise governance, prompt management, and observability.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · scale prompt · first choice
What the models said about Helicone
Every negative label with a quote, up to three, then the highest-weighted positives, up to three. Six of eight in this category shown.
“What I'd Avoid... Helicone | In maintenance mode since Mintlify acquisition” Kimi K2 · paraphrase prompt · hard negative
“now in maintenance mode. Avoid for new builds.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · paraphrase prompt · hard negative
“now maintenance mode post-2026 acquisition—no new signups, but OSS viable ... Hosted future uncertain; basic evals.” Grok 4.20 · paraphrase prompt · soft negative
“Choose Helicone if you need to debug why a specific LLM chain is failing, require the absolute lowest latency” Qwen 3.7 Flash · comparative prompt · first choice
“Start with Helicone. It is the most "agile" tool for a mid-sized B2B company.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · paraphrase prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend starting with Portkey.ai or Helicone” MiniMax M2.5 · direct prompt · first choice
Comparisons are drawn for the top eight products in each category, each against each. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.