# Arcade.dev vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents

> Arcade.dev has a score of 67 (B) against WorkOS Pipes and Agents's 60 (C). Both do auth oauth. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 30 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-workos-pipes
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-workos-pipes.md (~1,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-workos-pipes.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-workos-pipes.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: 2026-10-05

Arcade.dev has a score of 67 (B) against WorkOS Pipes and Agents's 60 (C). Both do auth oauth. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 30 points.

- Arcade.dev: grade B, 67/100, rank #147 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/arcade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/arcade.json
- WorkOS Pipes and Agents: grade C, 60/100, rank #256 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/workos-pipes.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/workos-pipes.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Arcade.dev for schema & documentation (+29), agent ergonomics (+10), payments & pricing (+30), transparency & trust (+8).

Pick WorkOS Pipes and Agents for reliability (+7), maintenance & community (+9).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Arcade.dev | WorkOS Pipes and Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 70 | WorkOS Pipes and Agents +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 53 | Arcade.dev +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 69 | Arcade.dev +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 69 | Arcade.dev +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 10 | Arcade.dev +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 83 | WorkOS Pipes and Agents +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 64 | Arcade.dev +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **60 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Arcade.dev | WorkOS Pipes and Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Arcade.dev | WorkOS |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.arcade.dev` | `https://api.workos.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (arcade-mcp framework and SDKs), platform closed | MIT (SDKs), platform closed |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `com.workos/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-28 |
| Popularity | 1k stars, 125k npm/wk, 70k PyPI/wk | 221 stars, 4M npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**WorkOS Pipes and Agents.** Agent identity with per-session revocation and token lifetimes set per blueprint. 21 incidents on the status page since 3 July 2026, several over an hour.

## Before you call either

### 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}`

### WorkOS Pipes and Agents

1. Call POST /data-integrations/{provider}/token with user_id for each use and don't cache the token
2. Branch on `active` in the response and send the user to reconnect on `needs_reauthorization`
3. Wait for Retry-After on a 429, or back off with jitter when it's missing
4. Use lower-case provider slugs such as github or slack
5. Revoke an agent's session through the Agents API when a task ends instead of waiting for expiry

## Other comparisons with Arcade.dev or WorkOS Pipes and Agents

- [Arcade.dev vs Auth0 for AI Agents (Token Vault)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-auth0-ai-agents.md)
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