Head to head · Calendar read · October 2026 research run
Aurinko Calendar API vs Cal.com API v2 + MCP
Cal.com API v2 + MCP scores 57.2 (C) on agent readiness against Aurinko Calendar API's 45.6 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Aurinko Calendar API leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do calendar read.
Which one, for what
Good for A product that connects many users' Google and Microsoft calendars and wants availability and booking at a low price per account.
Ahead on
- Agent ergonomics, 56 against 50
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
Watch for
No status page, incident history or SLA found, and the terms supply the service as is
Good for An agent that books, reschedules and cancels meetings into a Cal.com user's event types, or routes leads with routing forms.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 60 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 76 against 66
- Security & auth, 56 against 41
- Maintenance & community, 50 against 20
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 44
Also in its favour
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
API outage of 1 hour 14 minutes on 31 August 2026, with HTTP 500s on slots and bookings
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Aurinko Calendar API | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 60 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +20 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 66 | 76 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 56 | 50 | Aurinko Calendar API +6 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 41 | 56 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 30 | Aurinko Calendar API +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 20 | 50 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 44 | 78 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +34 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 45.6 · E | 57.2 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Aurinko Calendar API | Cal.com API v2 + MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Yoxel, Inc. | Cal.com |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.aurinko.io | https://api.cal.com/v2 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Yoxel's Terms of Services Agreement | Proprietary (hosted product since April 2026). The @calcom/cal-mcp package and repository carry no licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 63 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2022-08-11 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-08-11 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 30 stars, 786 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Aurinko Calendar API
A public OpenAPI 3.0 spec covers 154 operations, with free/busy, meeting-time suggestion and booking profiles alongside calendar reads and writes, and prices start at $1 an active account a month. No status page, SLA, changelog or official SDK was found, and the application's client secret reaches every connected account.
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
Aurinko Calendar API
- Use
https://api.aurinko.io/v1. Several cURL examples in the docs printhttps:/api.aurinko.iowith one slash - Send
If-Matchwith the event'setagonPATCH /v1/calendars/{calendarId}/events/{eventId}. A stale value returns 412 - Use
primaryas the calendar ID for an account's main calendar, and page withpageTokenuntil none is returned - Hold a slot with
reserveForMinuteson the bookingmeetingcall, then confirm or cancel the reservation, since no idempotency key exists - Retry 429, 408 and 5xx with exponential backoff. Do not retry 404. A 429 can come from Google or Microsoft limits behind the API
Cal.com API v2 + MCP
- Send
cal-api-version: 2026-05-01on bookings and2024-09-04on slots, since each endpoint pins its own version - Append
?toolsets=bookings,availabilityto the hosted MCP URL to skip the other 50-odd tools - Page bookings with
pagination.nextCursor, not offsets - Check for an existing booking before retrying a create, since there's no idempotency key
- Use
cal_test keys while building so bookings don't reach real calendars
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Aurinko Calendar API or Cal.com API v2 + MCP?
Cal.com API v2 + MCP scores 57.2 (C) on agent readiness against Aurinko Calendar API's 45.6 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Aurinko Calendar API leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.
Do Aurinko Calendar API and Cal.com API v2 + MCP need an API key?
Aurinko Calendar API uses an OAuth sign-in. Cal.com API v2 + MCP takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Aurinko Calendar API and Cal.com API v2 + MCP without installing anything?
Yes. Aurinko Calendar API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.aurinko.io and Cal.com API v2 + MCP at https://api.cal.com/v2.
Other comparisons with Aurinko Calendar API or Cal.com API v2 + MCP
- Acuity Scheduling API vs Aurinko Calendar API
- Acuity Scheduling API vs Cal.com API v2 + MCP
- Apiroc Unified Calendar API vs Aurinko Calendar API
- Apiroc Unified Calendar API vs Cal.com API v2 + MCP
- Aurinko Calendar API vs Calendly API + MCP
- Aurinko Calendar API vs Cronofy API
- Aurinko Calendar API vs Google Calendar API
- Aurinko Calendar API vs Microsoft Graph Calendar API
- Aurinko Calendar API vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Calendly API + MCP
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Cronofy API
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Google Calendar API
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Microsoft Graph Calendar API
- Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/aurinko-calendar-vs-cal-com.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/aurinko-calendar.json·/api/v1/tools/cal-com.json - From a terminal
anchor compare aurinko-calendar cal-com(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "aurinko-calendar", "b": "cal-com"}at/mcp, no key