# DeepEval vs Helicone AI Gateway + MCP

> DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) to Helicone AI Gateway's 46.9 (D) for evaluations. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) on agent readiness against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 46.9 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Helicone AI Gateway + MCP leads on transparency & trust. Both do evaluations.

- DeepEval: grade B, 64.7/100, rank #343 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepeval.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepeval.json
- Helicone AI Gateway + MCP: grade D, 46.9/100, rank #840 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/helicone.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/helicone.json
- Best agent tracing, monitoring and evaluation tools: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-observability/index.md
- All 120 evals comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### DeepEval (B)

Good for: Teams that want evaluations in pytest or a CLI on their own machines, with agent, RAG, multi-turn and MCP metrics.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 59 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 69
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 66

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Helicone AI Gateway + MCP loses 10 points for them

Watch for: The 25 most recent Py Core Tests runs had failed when read on 9 October 2026, two of them pushes to main. Issue #3372 of 26 September reports the same

### Helicone AI Gateway + MCP (D)

Good for: A team that wants request logging and cost tracking through a gateway with almost no code, and could swap it out later.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 69 against 63

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Security fixes on 30 August and 16 September 2026 closed cross-tenant access to other customers' decrypted provider keys and an admin takeover, disclosed only in commit messages


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DeepEval | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 59 | 50 | DeepEval +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 69 | DeepEval +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 70 | DeepEval +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 47 | 50 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | DeepEval +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 66 | DeepEval +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 69 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -10 | |
| **Total** | | **64.7 · B** | **46.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DeepEval | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Confident AI, Inc. | Helicone (Mintlify) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://ai-gateway.helicone.ai` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the Python and TypeScript packages and the agent skills. Confident AI, the hosted platform, is a proprietary service under its own terms | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2024-09-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2023-02-28 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 19k stars, 35k npm/wk, 736k PyPI/wk | 6.2k stars, 4.3k npm/wk, 4.2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**DeepEval.** DeepEval runs evaluations and tracing locally under Apache 2.0 with no account, and writes each test run to JSON or SQLite. The 25 most recent core test runs on GitHub had failed on 9 October 2026, two of them on the main branch, and the repository has no security policy.

**Helicone AI Gateway + MCP.** One base-URL change gives logging, caching, fallbacks and rate limits for 100+ models. Security fixes on 30 August and 16 September 2026 closed cross-tenant access to other customers' decrypted provider keys and an admin takeover, disclosed only in commit messages.

## Before you call either

### DeepEval

1. Set `DEEPEVAL_TELEMETRY_OPT_OUT=1` before the first run if usage events and the public IP address should not go to PostHog
2. Set a judge model key such as `OPENAI_API_KEY`, or use the non-LLM metrics. Most metrics call an LLM judge and bill the owner's provider account
3. Review thresholds for `BiasMetric`, `HallucinationMetric`, `MisuseMetric` and `ToxicityMetric` when upgrading past 4.2.0. Higher scores now mean better
4. Read results from `.deepeval/.latest_run_full.json` or a `results_folder`. `deepeval inspect` opens a terminal interface meant for a person
5. Pass an existing key with `deepeval login --api-key` in CI. Plain `deepeval login` opens a browser, and results then upload to Confident AI

### Helicone AI Gateway + MCP

1. Bring your own provider keys. Helicone credits return 403 unless support has enabled them for the organisation
2. Rotate any provider keys stored in Helicone before 30 August 2026
3. Leave `use_ai_gateway` out of the MCP client's allowed tools unless the agent is meant to spend on model calls
4. Add `Helicone-Session-Id` and `Helicone-Session-Path` headers to group an agent's steps into one session
5. Use the EU host (eu.helicone.ai) if the account was created there

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, DeepEval or Helicone AI Gateway + MCP?

DeepEval scores 64.7 (B) on agent readiness against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 46.9 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Helicone AI Gateway + MCP leads on transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call DeepEval and Helicone AI Gateway + MCP without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for DeepEval. Helicone AI Gateway + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://ai-gateway.helicone.ai.

### Are DeepEval and Helicone AI Gateway + MCP open source?

Yes. DeepEval is open source (Apache 2.0 for the Python and TypeScript packages and the agent skills. Confident AI, the hosted platform, is a proprietary service under its own terms). Helicone AI Gateway + MCP is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepeval-vs-helicone.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "deepeval", "b": "helicone"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare deepeval helicone`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepeval.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/helicone.json

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