# Aembit vs Arcade.dev

> Aembit scores 70.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcade.dev's 66.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Arcade.dev leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do auth oauth. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-arcade
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-arcade.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-arcade.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-arcade.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: 2026-10-08

Aembit scores 70.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcade.dev's 66.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Arcade.dev leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do auth oauth.

- Aembit: grade BB, 70.5/100, rank #127 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aembit.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aembit.json
- Arcade.dev: grade B, 66.9/100, rank #203 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/arcade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/arcade.json

## Which one, for what

### Aembit (BB)

Good for: A security team that wants one policy and audit point between AI agents or workloads and the services they call, with credentials kept away from the agent.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 84 against 71
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 74

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: No rate limit figures in the reviewed documentation. The Edge API lists 429 responses without limits or Retry-After guidance

### Arcade.dev (B)

Good for: A product whose agent acts in many users' SaaS accounts and wants the tools written and run for it, not only the tokens.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 72
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 60

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: The terms of 15 July 2025 call the service an early version provided as is, with no uptime commitment below Enterprise


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Aembit | Arcade.dev | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 63 | Aembit +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 82 | Aembit +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 79 | Arcade.dev +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 84 | 71 | Aembit +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 74 | Aembit +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 71 | Arcade.dev +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **70.5 · BB** | **66.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aembit | Arcade.dev |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Aembit, Inc. | Arcade.dev |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.arcade.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Aembit's terms of service. The Edge SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0 | MIT (arcade-mcp framework and SDKs), platform closed |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-25 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-14 | 2025-07-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-05 | 2026-09-10 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 27 npm/wk | 1k stars, 125k npm/wk, 70k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Aembit.** Agents and workloads get short-lived credentials by attestation, and MCP clients sign in through OAuth 2.1 with policy checked on every request. Both APIs have public OpenAPI files. No rate limit figures or SLA are published, the managed gateway endpoint is requested through an Aembit representative, and no DPA or sub-processor list was found.

**Arcade.dev.** Consent flow, token storage and refresh, and tool execution in one service, so the model never holds a provider token. The terms of 15 July 2025 call the service an early version provided as is, with no uptime commitment below Enterprise.

## Before you call either

### Aembit

1. Read the API Base URL and token from the tenant's Profile page. Tokens last 1 hour by default, so plan to refresh
2. Send `X-Aembit-ResourceSet` on Cloud API, Edge API and MCP calls outside the default Resource Set, or the request runs against the default set
3. Cache the Edge API access token from `/edge/v1/auth` until near expiry before calling `/edge/v1/credentials`. Both endpoints can answer 429
4. Point MCP clients at `https://<gateway-host>/mcp`. The `/me` path is deprecated
5. Expect tool names prefixed with the Server Workload name behind the MCP Identity Gateway, and keep `perPage` at 100 or less on the Aembit MCP Server

### Arcade.dev

1. Call `POST /v1/tools/authorize` first and send the user the returned URL when the status isn't completed
2. Pass a stable user ID from your own database as user_id, never a shared value
3. Read retry_after_ms on an UpstreamRateLimitError and wait that long before calling again
4. Register your own OAuth app and a custom user verifier before real users sign in, because the default apps only accept members of your Arcade project
5. Revoke a user's access with `DELETE /v1/admin/user_connections/{id}`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Aembit or Arcade.dev?

Aembit scores 70.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcade.dev's 66.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Arcade.dev leads on agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

### Do Aembit and Arcade.dev need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Aembit and Arcade.dev without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Aembit. Arcade.dev has a hosted endpoint at https://api.arcade.dev.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Aembit or Arcade.dev

- [Aembit vs Auth0 for AI Agents (Token Vault)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-auth0-ai-agents.md)
- [Aembit vs Descope Agentic Identity Hub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-descope-agentic-identity.md)
- [Aembit vs Keycard](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-keycard.md)
- [Aembit vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md)
- [Aembit vs Nango](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-nango.md)
- [Aembit vs Scalekit AgentKit](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-scalekit-agentkit.md)
- [Aembit vs Stytch Connected Apps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-stytch-connected-apps.md)
- [Aembit vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-workos-pipes.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Auth0 for AI Agents (Token Vault)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-auth0-ai-agents.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Descope Agentic Identity Hub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-descope-agentic-identity.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Keycard](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-keycard.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Nango](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-nango.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Scalekit AgentKit](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-scalekit-agentkit.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Stytch Connected Apps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-stytch-connected-apps.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-workos-pipes.md)