# BambooHR vs Humaans

> BambooHR scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against Humaans's 54.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Humaans leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do hr employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans.md (~1,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans.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: 2026-10-08

BambooHR scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against Humaans's 54.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Humaans leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do hr employees.

- BambooHR: grade C, 61.7/100, rank #357 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bamboohr.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bamboohr.json
- Humaans: grade C, 54.4/100, rank #529 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/humaans.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/humaans.json

## Which one, for what

### BambooHR (C)

Good for: An agent working inside one company's BambooHR account on directory lookups, time off, reports and goals, with the user's own permissions as the limit.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 62 against 56

Watch for: No rate limit numbers in the reviewed documentation. The terms reserve the right to throttle

### Humaans (C)

Good for: An agent working for a company that already runs Humaans and needs to read and update profiles, job roles and compensation, book and approve time away, and attach documents with a token narrowed by scope.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 50
- Security & auth, 70 against 64

Watch for: No OpenAPI file or Markdown docs. The reference is one HTML page of about 2 MB


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | BambooHR | Humaans | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 70 | Humaans +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 44 | BambooHR +44 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 60 | BambooHR +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 70 | Humaans +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 0 | BambooHR +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 56 | BambooHR +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 73 | BambooHR +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.7 · C** | **54.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | BambooHR | Humaans |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Bamboo HR LLC | Humaans Software UK Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://{companyDomain}.bamboohr.com/api/v1` | `https://app.humaans.io/api` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under BambooHR's terms of service and developer terms. The official PHP SDK on GitHub is MIT | Proprietary service under Humaans' Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | 56 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-08-26 | 2026-09-10 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-02-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| 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 | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 34 stars | none |

## Verdicts

**BambooHR.** The REST API publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 spec with 389 operations, llms.txt and OAuth scopes with separate write variants, and every call runs with the authorising user's permissions. No rate limit numbers are published, the MCP server is in beta, and its results can omit records without saying so.

**Humaans.** API tokens are limited by eight scopes and the creator's role, can expire and can be rotated with a seven-day overlap, and rate limits are published with Retry-After on 429. No OpenAPI file, API changelog, official SDK or idempotency keys were found, and prices are by quote, so an agent needs a paying customer's token.

## Before you call either

### BambooHR

1. Treat a short or empty result as what this caller may see. `list_employees` drops employees when a filter or sort field is restricted
2. Honour `Retry-After` on 429. Rate-limited calls returned 503 before 16 September 2026, so handle both
3. Ask for read scopes only unless the task writes. Write access needs the matching `.write` scope
4. Request `offline_access` to receive a refresh token. Access tokens last one hour
5. Use `list-employees` with `fields`, `filter` and cursor paging in place of the unpaginated directory endpoint

### Humaans

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <token>` to https://app.humaans.io/api. Call `GET /api/token-info` first to read the token's scopes and expiry
2. Expect a role limit as well as scopes. A token made by a user with the User role reads only public company data and that person's own profile
3. Page with `$limit` (maximum 250) and `$skip`, and pass `-g` to curl because parameters use `$` and `[]`
4. On 429 wait the seconds in `Retry-After`. The bucket holds 40 requests and refills at 7 a second per token
5. Check state before retrying a POST. No idempotency key exists, and `DELETE /api/people/:id` cannot be undone

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, BambooHR or Humaans?

BambooHR scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against Humaans's 54.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Humaans leads on reliability and security & auth.

### Do BambooHR and Humaans need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call BambooHR and Humaans without installing anything?

Yes. BambooHR has a hosted endpoint at https://{companyDomain}.bamboohr.com/api/v1 and Humaans at https://app.humaans.io/api.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-humaans.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "bamboohr", "b": "humaans"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare bamboohr humaans`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bamboohr.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/humaans.json

## Other comparisons with BambooHR or Humaans

- [BambooHR vs Deel](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-deel.md)
- [BambooHR vs Factorial](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-factorial.md)
- [BambooHR vs HiBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-hibob.md)
- [BambooHR vs Rippling](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-rippling.md)
- [BambooHR vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-zoho-people.md)
- [Deel vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-humaans.md)
- [Factorial vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-humaans.md)
- [HiBob vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-humaans.md)
- [Humaans vs Rippling](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/humaans-vs-rippling.md)
- [Humaans vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/humaans-vs-zoho-people.md)