# Aembit vs Keycard

> Aembit scores 70.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do auth oauth. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-keycard
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-keycard.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-keycard.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-keycard.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 Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do auth oauth.

- Aembit: grade BB, 70.5/100, rank #134 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aembit.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aembit.json
- Keycard: grade C, 56.2/100, rank #492 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/keycard.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/keycard.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:
- Reliability, 65 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 61
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Transparency & trust, 60 against 44

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

### Keycard (C)

Good for: A security-minded team building agents that need their own identities, policy on every delegation and an audit trail per hop, and that is comfortable on an Early Access product.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Early Access with sign-up by request, and no terms of service page


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Aembit | Keycard | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 35 | Aembit +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 61 | Aembit +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 60 | Aembit +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 84 | 86 | Keycard +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Aembit +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 79 | Aembit +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 44 | Aembit +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.5 · BB** | **56.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Aembit | Keycard |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Aembit, Inc. | Keycard Labs |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.keycard.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| 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 (SDKs), Apache-2.0 (keycard-python API client), platform closed, BYOC or on-prem on Enterprise |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-14 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-05 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 27 npm/wk | 1 stars, 52 npm/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.

**Keycard.** Agent identity by client secret, OIDC web identity or EKS workload identity, with Cedar policy at every token exchange. Early Access with sign-up by request, and no terms of service page.

## 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

### Keycard

1. Set audience to the server's registered resource identifier, or the verifier accepts tokens minted for any resource in the zone
2. Check `AccessContext.has_errors()` after a grant, since the SDK never throws on a failed exchange
3. Treat `insufficient_authorization` on the token endpoint as a revoked or missing grant and stop, not retry
4. Keep credentials short-lived, because revocation only stops the next issuance
5. Pin keycardai-mcp to a major version, since 1.0.0 and 2.0.0 shipped a day apart

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Aembit or Keycard?

Aembit scores 70.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Keycard's 56.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Aembit and Keycard need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Aembit and Keycard without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Aembit. Keycard has a hosted endpoint at https://api.keycard.ai.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Aembit or Keycard

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