Arcade.dev vs Vercel Connect

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.

Vercel Connect

Provider refresh tokens stay with Vercel, and code receives short-lived tokens tied to a project and environment through one call with a public OpenAPI definition. Vercel's SLA excludes its APIs, the status page records 94 minutes of elevated Connect errors on 10 September 2026, and the only SDK is TypeScript.

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}

Vercel Connect

1. Call getToken at request time and don't store the result. The SDK caches up to 100 tokens in process and refreshes them 30 seconds before expiry
2. Pass scopes on every request. Since SDK 1.0.0 an omitted scopes defaults to ['*'], the connector's default scopes
3. Catch UserAuthorizationRequiredError, call startAuthorization and send the user to the returned URL. Consent needs a person in a browser
4. Outside Vercel, pass a Vercel access token as vercelToken. It can request only the app subject or its own user, not another user
5. On a 429 wait one minute for the window to reset. Limits are 200 token requests a minute per team