# Helicone alternatives: what AI models name instead, October 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. 202 of the 252 answers in the 1 category where Helicone holds a standing named it neither first nor as an alternative; these are the first choices those answers made. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/helicone/alternatives/

## Named instead, most often (every category and segment added)

- LiteLLM: 53
- Portkey: 39
- OpenRouter: 19
- Bifrost: 17
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: 9
- Kong AI Gateway: 3

## LLM gateways and observability

**Small business**: 59 of 84 answers did not name Helicone (Helicone is #5 of 7 at 5%).

- LiteLLM: first choice in 15 of those 59
- Portkey: first choice in 14 of those 59
- OpenRouter: first choice in 13 of those 59
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: first choice in 7 of those 59
- Vercel AI Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 59
- Bifrost: first choice in 1 of those 59
- FreeLLMAPI: first choice in 1 of those 59
- Nexos.ai: first choice in 1 of those 59

**Mid-market**: 69 of 84 answers did not name Helicone (Helicone is #4 of 8 at 6%).

- LiteLLM: first choice in 20 of those 69
- Portkey: first choice in 13 of those 69
- OpenRouter: first choice in 6 of those 69
- Bifrost: first choice in 4 of those 69
- Cloudflare AI Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 69
- Portkey AI Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 69
- Apache APISIX: first choice in 1 of those 69
- Gateway-LLM: first choice in 1 of those 69

**Enterprise**: 74 of 84 answers did not name Helicone (Helicone is #5 of 8 at 2%).

- LiteLLM: first choice in 18 of those 74
- Bifrost: first choice in 12 of those 74
- Portkey: first choice in 12 of those 74
- Kong AI Gateway: first choice in 3 of those 74
- LLM Gateway: first choice in 2 of those 74
- Apache APISIX: first choice in 1 of those 74
- Arize AX: first choice in 1 of those 74
- Azure API Management AI Gateway: first choice in 1 of those 74

Published under CC BY 4.0. The output is the models' output; nothing here is a recommendation by the index.