# Apiroc Unified Calendar API vs Cal.com API v2 + MCP

> Cal.com API v2 + MCP has a score of 57.5 (C) against Apiroc Unified Calendar API's 41.3 (E). Both do calendar read. The largest gap is security & auth, 35 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Cal.com API v2 + MCP has a score of 57.5 (C) against Apiroc Unified Calendar API's 41.3 (E). Both do calendar read. The largest gap is security & auth, 35 points.

- Apiroc Unified Calendar API: grade E, 41.3/100, rank #417 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apiroc.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/apiroc.json
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP: grade C, 57.5/100, rank #292 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cal-com.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cal-com.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Apiroc Unified Calendar API for payments & pricing (+10), maintenance & community (+12).

Pick Cal.com API v2 + MCP for reliability (+25), schema & documentation (+32), security & auth (+35), transparency & trust (+28).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apiroc Unified Calendar API | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 60 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 44 | 76 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +32 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 50 | Apiroc Unified Calendar API +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 56 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +35 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Apiroc Unified Calendar API +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 50 | Apiroc Unified Calendar API +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 53 | 81 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +28 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **41.3 · E** | **57.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apiroc Unified Calendar API | Cal.com API v2 + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apiroc | Cal.com |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.apiroc.com/api/v1` | `https://api.cal.com/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (Node SDK) | Proprietary (hosted product since April 2026). The @calcom/cal-mcp package and repository carry no licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 63 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-05 | 2026-09-15 |
| Popularity | 26 npm/wk | 30 stars, 786 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Apiroc Unified Calendar API.** $0.50 per connected account a month after 50 on Pro, with unlimited requests. No status page history, changelog, OpenAPI spec, llms.txt or security.txt.

**Cal.com API v2 + MCP.** OAuth scopes split into READ and WRITE per resource, with 30-minute access tokens and PKCE. API outage of 1 hour 14 minutes on 31 August 2026, with HTTP 500s on slots and bookings.

## Before you call either

### Apiroc Unified Calendar API

1. Send the key in the `x-api-key` header from a server, never a browser
2. Call api.apiroc.com, since the SDK's old default host was api.onecalunified.com
3. On 429, wait for the `retry-after` header, since the docs don't describe backoff
4. Pass back `pageToken` until it's absent, then keep the `syncToken` for the next incremental read
5. Dedupe webhooks on `svix-id`, since Svix retries deliveries

### Cal.com API v2 + MCP

1. Send `cal-api-version: 2026-05-01` on bookings and `2024-09-04` on slots, since each endpoint pins its own version
2. Append `?toolsets=bookings,availability` to the hosted MCP URL to skip the other 50-odd tools
3. Page bookings with `pagination.nextCursor`, not offsets
4. Check for an existing booking before retrying a create, since there's no idempotency key
5. Use `cal_` test keys while building so bookings don't reach real calendars

## Other comparisons with Apiroc Unified Calendar API or Cal.com API v2 + MCP

- [Apiroc Unified Calendar API vs Calendly API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apiroc-vs-calendly.md)
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