Helicone Was Acquired.
Your AI Stack Shouldn’t Be
in Maintenance Mode.
Helicone joined Mintlify on March 3, 2026. It’s now in maintenance mode -- security updates only. Curate-Me is the actively-developed alternative with governance, managed runners, and full observability.
Migrate from Helicone in 5 minutes. One environment variable change. Zero code changes.
What the acquisition means for Helicone users
Mintlify builds documentation tools. Their roadmap is documentation, not AI governance. Here is what changed.
Helicone (Maintenance Mode)
Acquired by Mintlify, March 2026
- Security patches only -- no new features
- Core team reassigned to Mintlify products
- Community and ecosystem support winding down
- Roadmap tied to documentation, not AI governance
- No commitment to long-term standalone operation
Curate-Me (Active Development)
Independent platform, weekly releases
- Weekly releases with new features and improvements
- Full governance chain: rate limits, cost caps, PII scanning
- Managed OpenClaw runners with sandbox execution
- Independent company -- no acquisition risk
- Active community and dedicated support team
Feature-by-feature comparison
Helicone was a capable observability tool. Here is how Curate-Me compares across every dimension -- including the governance features Helicone never built.
| Feature | Helicone (Maintenance) | Curate-Me (Active) |
|---|---|---|
| LLM Gateway Proxy | Yes (Rust) | Yes (Python/httpx) |
| Active Development | Yes -- weekly releases | |
| Cost Tracking | Yes + budget enforcement | |
| PII Scanning | ||
| Model Allowlists | ||
| HITL Approvals | ||
| Managed Runners | Yes (OpenClaw-native) | |
| Immutable Audit Trail | ||
| Time-Travel Debugging | ||
| Desktop Streaming | Yes (VNC/RDP) | |
| EU AI Act Ready | ||
| Free Tier | 100K req/mo | 10K req/mo |
| Pricing | $25/mo Pro | $49/mo Starter |
Comparison based on publicly available documentation as of March 2026. Helicone status reflects post-acquisition maintenance mode.
Everything Helicone had, plus what it never built
Curate-Me includes observability and logging, but goes further with a full governance chain, managed runners, and compliance tooling.
Budget Enforcement
Helicone tracked what you spent. Curate-Me stops you from overspending. Real-time daily budgets and per-request cost limits deny requests before they reach the provider.
PII Scanning
Regex-based detection for API keys, credit card numbers, SSNs, and PII in request content. Block or redact automatically before data reaches any LLM provider.
Model Allowlists
Control which models each organization or team can use. Prevent accidental calls to expensive models. Supports wildcards (e.g., gpt-4* allows all GPT-4 variants).
HITL Approvals
Requests above a configurable cost threshold are held in an approval queue. Review, approve, or deny from the dashboard with full request context.
Managed Runners
Secure OpenClaw sandbox containers with 4-tier access control, network phase separation, and immutable audit trail. Helicone had no execution environment.
Immutable Audit Trail
Every governance decision, every request, every cost event -- recorded in an append-only audit log. Time-travel debugging lets you replay any agent execution step-by-step.
Time-Travel Debugging
Replay and inspect any agent execution step by step. See the exact state at each checkpoint. No other gateway offers this level of debuggability.
Desktop Streaming
VNC and RDP streaming lets you watch agents interact with desktop environments in real time. Built on Guacamole for browser-based access.
EU AI Act Ready
Full audit trail, governance chain documentation, and compliance reporting designed for EU AI Act requirements. Stay ahead of regulation.
Migrate from Helicone in 5 minutes
No SDK changes. No code changes. Just swap one environment variable.
Sign up for free at curate-me.ai
Create your account in 30 seconds. No credit card required.
Get your API key from the dashboard
Your API key and gateway URL are shown immediately after signup.
Replace your Helicone base URL with your Curate-Me gateway URL
Change OPENAI_BASE_URL from oai.helicone.ai to api.curate-me.ai.
That's it -- zero code changes needed
Your existing OpenAI/Anthropic SDK calls work exactly as before, now with full governance.
OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://oai.helicone.ai/v1
Helicone-Auth: Bearer sk_xxxOPENAI_BASE_URL=https://api.curate-me.ai/v1/openai
X-CM-API-Key: cm_sk_xxxStart Free --
Migrate from Helicone in 5 Minutes
Swap one base URL. Get cost enforcement, PII scanning, model allowlists, HITL approvals, managed runners, and an immutable audit trail -- all actively developed and supported.