# Affinity vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)

> Affinity scores 63.4 (B) to SugarAI's 49.5 (D) for crm records. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-sugarcrm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-sugarcrm.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-sugarcrm.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-sugarcrm.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: 2026-10-09

Affinity scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against SugarAI (SugarCRM)'s 49.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do crm records.

- Affinity: grade B, 63.4/100, rank #395 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/affinity.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/affinity.json
- SugarAI (SugarCRM): grade D, 49.5/100, rank #793 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sugarcrm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sugarcrm.json
- Best CRM and customer-platform tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/crm/index.md
- All 136 crm comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crm/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Affinity (B)

Good for: Venture capital, private equity and other private capital firms that already run Affinity and want an agent to read relationship strength, pipeline lists, notes and meetings, then update fields and log notes.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 91 against 48
- Security & auth, 66 against 51
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 22

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No self-serve access. Every plan button reads Contact sales, the Essential plan has no API, and trial accounts can't call the API

### SugarAI (SugarCRM) (D)

Good for: Companies already running Sugar Sell, Serve or Enterprise that want an agent to read and write records under a named user's roles, and that have Sugar's approval for the integration.

Watch for: The AI Supplemental Terms forbid connecting customer-owned or third-party AI systems, agents or MCP connectors to the Services or APIs except through functionality Sugar has approved. This matters before any probe is run


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Affinity | SugarAI (SugarCRM) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 64 | 61 | Affinity +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 91 | 48 | Affinity +43 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 69 | SugarAI (SugarCRM) +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 51 | Affinity +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 10 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 22 | Affinity +48 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 71 | SugarAI (SugarCRM) +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.4 · B** | **49.5 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Affinity | SugarAI (SugarCRM) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Project Affinity, Inc. | SugarAI Software Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.affinity.co/v2` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Affinity's master subscription agreement. The `affinity-mcp` package on PyPI is MIT | Proprietary service under the SugarAI Customer Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | 75 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | none |
| Terms last updated |  |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-01 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 268 PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Affinity.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 file, dated API versions with migration notes and a hosted MCP server with a read-only OAuth scope give an agent a well-documented way in. Access needs a Scale plan at $2,300 a user a year, sold through sales, with no trial that includes the API, and 36 of the 112 v2 operations are marked beta.

**SugarAI (SugarCRM).** The REST reference covers 350 endpoint pages with filters, field selection, bulk calls and upsert by `sync_key`. SugarAI's AI Supplemental Terms forbid connecting a customer's or third party's AI agent or MCP connector to the APIs unless Sugar has approved it, tokens carry no scopes, and no OpenAPI file, trial or SLA was found.

## Before you call either

### Affinity

1. Send `X-Affinity-Api-Version: 2026-09-17` on every request, or the key's default version applies. Unauthenticated calls answered as 2024-01-01 when we checked
2. Read `x-ratelimit-limit-user-remaining` and `x-ratelimit-limit-org-remaining` on each response. The limits are 900 calls a minute per user and, below Enterprise, 100,000 a month per account, shared by v1, v2 and MCP
3. Follow `pagination.nextUrl` for the next page, and pass `fieldIds` or `fieldTypes` so list calls return only the fields needed
4. Check for duplicates before a create. There are no idempotency keys, so a retried POST can make a second record
5. For MCP, untick the write scope at OAuth consent when the task only reads. Treat note, transcript and file text as untrusted input

### SugarAI (SugarCRM)

1. Confirm that Sugar has approved the agent integration before connecting. The AI Supplemental Terms forbid unapproved AI agents and MCP connectors on the APIs
2. POST to `/rest/v11_27/oauth2/token` with `grant_type` `password` and a `platform` other than `base`, `mobile` or `portal`, or the login can end the user's own session
3. Send the access token in the `OAuth-Token` header. It lasts 60 minutes by default, so store the refresh token and not the password
4. Stay under 20 requests a second on SugarCloud and reuse one session for batches. Over-limit traffic is blocked by IP address until support lifts it
5. Page with `max_num` and `offset` until `next_offset` is -1, and pass `fields` to keep responses small
6. Use `PATCH /integrate/:module/:sync_key_field_name/:sync_key_field_value` for writes that may be retried, since it inserts or updates by `sync_key`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Affinity or SugarAI (SugarCRM)?

Affinity scores 63.4 (B) on agent readiness against SugarAI (SugarCRM)'s 49.5 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Affinity and SugarAI (SugarCRM) need an API key?

Affinity takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SugarAI (SugarCRM) uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Affinity and SugarAI (SugarCRM) without installing anything?

Affinity has a hosted endpoint at https://api.affinity.co/v2. No hosted endpoint is listed for SugarAI (SugarCRM).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Affinity or SugarAI (SugarCRM)

- [Affinity vs Attio API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-attio.md)
- [Affinity vs Capsule CRM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-capsule-crm.md)
- [Affinity vs Close API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-close.md)
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- [Affinity vs Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-dynamics-365-sales.md)
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- [Affinity vs Freshsales API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-freshsales.md)
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- [Affinity vs Nutshell](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-nutshell.md)
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- [Affinity vs Zoho CRM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/affinity-vs-zoho-crm.md)
- [Attio API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/attio-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Capsule CRM vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/capsule-crm-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Close API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/close-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Copper API vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/copper-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dynamics-365-sales-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [folk API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/folk-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Freshsales API vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/freshsales-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [HubSpot API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hubspot-mcp-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Nutshell vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nutshell-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Pipedrive API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipedrive-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [Salesflare vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/salesflare-vs-sugarcrm.md)
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- [Streak API + MCP vs SugarAI (SugarCRM)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/streak-vs-sugarcrm.md)
- [SugarAI (SugarCRM) vs Twenty API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sugarcrm-vs-twenty.md)
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