Helicone vs Medusa
Open-source LLM observability — 1-line integration via proxy
vs. Open-source commerce engine — build custom storefronts with Next.js + Node
Pricing tiers
Helicone
Hobby (Free)
10,000 requests/month. 7-day retention. 1 seat. Basic monitoring.
Free
Startup Discount
<2 years, <$5M funding: 50% off first year.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Hosted (OSS)
MIT-licensed. Run Helicone yourself for free.
$0 base (usage-based)
Pro
$79/month. 10k free + usage-based. Unlimited seats. Alerts, reports, HQL query language. 1-month retention.
$79/mo
Team
$799/month. 5 orgs, SOC-2 + HIPAA compliance, dedicated Slack, 3-month retention.
$799/mo
Enterprise
Custom MSA, SAML SSO, on-prem deploy, bulk discounts, forever retention.
Custom
Medusa
OSS (self-host)
$0. MIT license. Run Medusa backend + admin on your infra.
$0 base (usage-based)
Medusa Cloud Free
$0. Hobby projects. Shared infra. Community support.
Free
Medusa Cloud Pro
$99/mo. Production support. Dedicated DB. Priority.
$99/mo
Enterprise
Custom. SSO, SLA, dedicated cluster, PCI.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing hobby on Helicone vs oss on Medusa.
| Metric | Helicone | Medusa |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Helicone · 16 features
- Alerts — Thresholds on error rate, latency, cost, usage. Pro+.
- Async Logging — Log AFTER the LLM call via SDK — zero added latency.
- Cost Tracking — Automatic cost calculation per call by provider/model.
- Dashboard — Request tables, aggregate metrics, cost breakdowns.
- Evaluators — LLM-as-judge + custom evaluators on runs.
- Experiments — A/B test different models/prompts.
- HQL (SQL over traces) — Query your logged data with SQL. Pro+.
- PII Redaction — Automatically scrub emails, credit cards, etc. from logs.
- Prompt Caching — Cache identical requests → save money.
- Prompts & Versions — Store + version + A/B test prompts.
- Proxy Mode — 1-line integration via base URL swap. Captures all requests.
- Rate Limiting — Per-user + per-key rate limit policies.
- Reports — Scheduled email reports with KPIs.
- Self-Hosting — Docker + k8s deployment.
- Sessions — Group related calls (chat sessions, agent runs).
- User Metrics — Per-user cost + usage segmentation.
Medusa · 16 features
- Admin Dashboard — React-based admin UI.
- Auth — Customer + admin auth with JWT.
- Cart — Multi-region carts with tax/pricing logic.
- Checkout — Multi-step checkout flow.
- Customers + Groups — Customer records + B2B groups.
- Dynamic Pricing — Price lists, rules, customer-specific.
- Event Bus — Async events via Redis / RabbitMQ.
- File Service — Pluggable storage (S3, local).
- Gift Cards — Native gift-card support.
- Inventory + Multi-warehouse — Stock tracking across locations.
- Next.js Starter — Production-ready Next.js storefront.
- Orders + Fulfillment — Full order lifecycle (edits, returns, exchanges).
- Products + Variants — Products with options, variants, images.
- Promotions + Discounts — Rule-based promos, campaigns.
- Tax Providers — Pluggable tax calculation.
- Workflows Engine — Durable saga-style business logic.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Helicone | Medusa |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Helicone CLI | medusa CLI |
| SDK | helicone (npm), helicone-python | @medusajs/js-sdk |
| REST | Async Logging API, Helicone Proxy, Query API (HQL) | Medusa Admin API, Medusa Store API |
| MCP | — | Medusa MCP |
| OTHER | Helicone Dashboard, Webhooks | Medusa Admin UI, Next.js Starter |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Helicone and Medusa are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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