# Galileo API + MCP vs Helicone AI Gateway + MCP

> Galileo API + MCP has a score of 48 (D) against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 47.1 (D). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is reliability, 32 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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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: 2026-10-05

Galileo API + MCP has a score of 48 (D) against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 47.1 (D). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is reliability, 32 points.

- Galileo API + MCP: grade D, 48/100, rank #378 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/galileo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/galileo.json
- Helicone AI Gateway + MCP: grade D, 47.1/100, rank #387 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/helicone.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/helicone.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Galileo API + MCP for schema & documentation (+10), maintenance & community (+8).

Pick Helicone AI Gateway + MCP for reliability (+32), security & auth (+17), payments & pricing (+10), transparency & trust (+15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Galileo API + MCP | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 18 | 50 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 69 | Galileo API + MCP +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 70 | Galileo API + MCP +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 50 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 66 | Galileo API + MCP +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 71 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -10 | |
| **Total** | | **48 · D** | **47.1 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Galileo API + MCP | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Galileo (now Splunk Agent Observability, Cisco) | Helicone (Mintlify) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.galileo.ai/v2` | `https://ai-gateway.helicone.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source) | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 8 | 3 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 1.4k npm/wk, 6.2k PyPI/wk | 6.2k stars, 4.3k npm/wk, 4.2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Galileo API + MCP.** OpenAPI 3.1 spec with 184 paths and 244 operations. No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA.

**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

### Galileo API + MCP

1. Check which side the account lives on first. Pre-August Galileo accounts use api.galileo.ai, Splunk SaaS accounts use app.{realm}.observability.splunkcloud.com/ao/api/
2. Send the key as `Splunk-AO-API-Key`. The current spec no longer lists `Galileo-API-Key`
3. Page list endpoints with `limit` and `starting_token`
4. Use the error catalogue's retriable flag to decide whether to retry. 429s carry no documented `Retry-After`
5. Use the REST API to read traces. The MCP server mostly creates datasets and prompts

### 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

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