Aidbox vs Metriport Medical API

Aidbox

Graded on the FHIR REST API of an Aidbox instance the owner runs. Monthly releases, two-year LTS lines, SMART on FHIR, AccessPolicy rules and AuditEvent logging are documented, and a free development licence needs no sales call. Aidbox has no rate limiting of its own, its MCP module is alpha, and no terms of service were found on the website.

Metriport Medical API

One network query pulls a patient's records from HIEs, pharmacies and labs and returns deduplicated FHIR, with per-operation rate limits, RFC 7807 errors and AGPLv3 source. Each API key has full access with no scopes, there are no public prices, and the sandbox opens only after Metriport approves the account.

Aidbox

1. Ask the operator for a Client with an AccessPolicy limited to the task. Don't rely on the public MCP policy, which the docs mark unsafe
2. Use If-None-Exist on creates and conditional update on identifiers so retries don't duplicate records
3. Use _elements and _count to keep responses small, and follow the Bundle's paging links
4. Throttle yourself. Aidbox applies no rate limit, so a burst lands on the customer's database
5. Don't load real patient data into an instance on a development licence

Metriport Medical API

1. Check the errors array after Start Network Query. It returns 2XX even when some sources fail
2. Wait for network-query.* webhooks or poll Get Network Query Status before reading consolidated data, which is cached from the last query
3. Send the resource's eTag in If-Match on updates to avoid overwriting newer data
4. Keep patient creates under 15 a minute and network queries under 20 a minute per source
5. In sandbox, create patients whose first name matches a pre-defined persona to get example records