# Helicone AI Gateway + MCP vs Respan API + MCP

> Respan API + MCP has a score of 65.9 (B) against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 47.1 (D). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is reliability, 23 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-respan
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-respan.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-respan.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/helicone-vs-respan.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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

Respan API + MCP has a score of 65.9 (B) against Helicone AI Gateway + MCP's 47.1 (D). Both do obs traces. The largest gap is reliability, 23 points.

- 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
- Respan API + MCP: grade B, 65.9/100, rank #165 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/respan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/respan.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Helicone AI Gateway + MCP for transparency & trust (+10).

Pick Respan API + MCP for reliability (+23), schema & documentation (+20), security & auth (+16), maintenance & community (+19).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP | Respan API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 73 | Respan API + MCP +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 89 | Respan API + MCP +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 66 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 66 | Respan API + MCP +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 85 | Respan API + MCP +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 61 | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -10 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **47.1 · D** | **65.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Helicone AI Gateway + MCP | Respan API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Helicone (Mintlify) | Respan (formerly Keywords AI) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://ai-gateway.helicone.ai` | `https://api.respan.ai/api` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 (SDKs only, platform closed source) |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 67 |
| 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 | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 6.2k stars, 4.3k npm/wk, 4.2k PyPI/wk | 270 npm/wk, 13k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Respan API + MCP.** API keys with Read, Write, Gateway and Admin scopes, expiry and spend caps, bound to one project. 67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no `readOnlyHint` or `destructiveHint` annotations.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Respan API + MCP

1. Create a key with only the Read scope for agents that analyse logs. New keys get Read, Write and Gateway by default
2. Set `Respan-Enabled-Tools` to a short list such as list_traces,get_trace_tree,list_logs. All 67 tools load otherwise
3. Pass `filters` to `list_logs` rather than paging through everything. The default window is the last hour
4. Call `list_organizations` first when results look empty over OAuth. Every tool acts on the active organisation only
5. Append `.md` to any docs URL for clean Markdown

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