Capwatch vs Helicone
Helicone: An LLM observability proxy: every request goes through Helicone, which logs it and its cost. Change your base URL to Helicone's proxy. Bought by Mintlify in March 2026 and reported to be in maintenance mode.
| Capwatch | Helicone | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $15/mo Pro, free for 1 provider | Pro $79/mo |
| Setup | Paste a read-only admin key | Route every call through a proxy |
| Added latency | None | A network hop per request |
| Vercel and hosting spend | Yes | No |
| Rate-limit headroom | Yes (Anthropic, OpenAI) | No |
| Kill switch | Pause key / project | Rate limits via proxy |
| Phone push alerts | Yes, installable app | No |
Which should you pick?
Pick Helicone if you need request-level logs and prompt debugging. Pick Capwatch if you need to know and control what you spend across providers, without putting a proxy in your request path.
Prices and facts checked on 9 November 2026 from public pages. Tell us if something changed: [email protected]