EvalGuard vs Helicone.
Open-source LLM observability + cost dashboard, ClickHouse-backedHelicone (helicone.ai, YC W23) is an open-source LLM observability platform focused on tracing, cost tracking, and a real-time dashboard. ClickHouse-backed for trace scale, Helm chart published, free OSS tier with paid SaaS. Strong observability primitives, but no eval framework, no red-team library, no runtime firewall.
Competitor data (GitHub stars, downloads, feature counts, funding / acquisition status) verified as of 2026-04-28. EvalGuard's own counts are sourced live from the drift-checked registry.
Coverage at a glance
EvalGuard vs Helicone, by the numbers
Where both platforms publish a number, here's the gap. Our values come straight from the drift-checked registry; Helicone's are quoted as published.
| Feature | EvalGuard | Helicone |
|---|---|---|
| Attack Plugins | 249 | 0 |
| Eval Scorers | 198 | Custom (no built-in library) |
| LLM Providers | 91 (typed registry) | Proxy-based (broad) |
| Compliance Frameworks | 33 | 0 |
| LLM Firewall | 5-layer, 2.57ms p95 | No |
| LLM Gateway | Yes | Yes (proxy-based) |
| Agent Tracing (OTel) | Yes | Yes (custom format) |
| Cost / FinOps Analytics | Yes | Yes (their strength) |
| ClickHouse for trace scale | Roadmap (Tier A) | Yes (today) |
| Red Team Suite | Yes (249 plugins, 43 strategies) | No |
| Prompt IDE | Yes | No |
| Open Source | Apache 2.0 | Apache 2.0 |
| Helm chart | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted Docker | Yes | Yes |
Why choose EvalGuard over Helicone
- Helicone is observability-only — we ship eval (198 scorers), red team (249 plugins), firewall, and compliance (33 frameworks) alongside the same observability surface
- Runtime LLM firewall at 2.57ms p95 — Helicone has no inline protection layer
- Compliance Center with 33 frameworks (OWASP LLM Top 10, EU AI Act, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, India DPDP, HIPAA + 27 more) — Helicone has none
- BYOK encryption + Vault-backed envelope encryption — Helicone stores keys in plaintext per their codebase
Where Helicone leads
- Helicone is mature on cost/observability (their primary focus) — strong real-time cost dashboard with caching analytics
- ClickHouse-backed trace storage scales past 500K traces/day — we use Postgres until volume justifies the migration
- Strong YC W23 community + funding; 4K+ GitHub stars
- Proxy-based gateway covers more provider edge cases since it intercepts at the HTTP layer
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