Head to head · Content management · October 2026 research run
BCMS vs ButterCMS
ButterCMS scores 51.4 (D) on agent readiness against BCMS's 33.5 (F), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. BCMS leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do content management.
Best headless CMS and website publishing for AI agents · All 136 cms comparisons
Which one, for what
BCMS F
Best for Small sites and agencies that want a cheap hosted CMS an agent can edit.
Ahead on
- Security & auth, 39 against 31
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
Watch for
The MCP key is accepted only as a URL query parameter
Best for A team already on a paid ButterCMS plan that wants an agent to draft and publish pages, collection items and blog posts in small volumes.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 82 against 15
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 64 against 36
Watch for
The Write API is a paid add-on on Advanced ($249 a month) and Professional ($399), capped at 2,000 and 5,000 write calls a month. Its price is not published
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Reliability ButterCMS +67
BCMS 15
Graded on BCMS Cloud with the hosted lines. No status page was found (0) and no incident history could be read (5). The terms refer to rate limits, but no numbers were found in the docs (0). No 429 or retry guidance was found (0). No SLA; Enterprise is by quote (0). The MCP server card says version 3.0.0 and nothing is labelled beta (10). 0+5+0+0+0+10 = 15.
ButterCMS 82
Graded on the hosted Read and Write APIs. Public status page on Atlassian Statuspage with CDN, API and Login Page components and a history feed (20). The feed's newest incidents are two on 20 October 2025, so the 90 days to 4 November 2026 are clean (30). Limits are published as monthly quotas by plan, from 50,000 calls on Free to 1M on Professional, with 2,000 or 5,000 write calls on the add-on. No per-second limit is published (10 of 15, a partial kept from the 9 October check). Free and trial accounts get a 429 that the docs say may carry Retry-After, the docs show exponential backoff for 5xx errors, and the bulk-operations page says to check whether content exists before creating it to avoid duplicates during retries. There are no idempotency keys, so safe-retry guidance without keys (12). The pricing page lists an SLA on Enterprise with no SLA document or figure, which this run reads as 0. The v2 API is generally available (10).
Schema & documentation ButterCMS +28
BCMS 50
The docs link an OpenAPI reference at app.thebcms.com/open-api-docs, but that host's robots.txt disallows every path, so it wasn't read. The MCP tool schemas need a session (10 of 25). llms.txt, docs llms.txt, llms-full.txt, Markdown pages and a public SKILL.md (10). llms.txt says when to use BCMS and when not to, and the MCP page gives each tool group's purpose (12 of 20). Input typing couldn't be checked (5 of 15). Curl and JavaScript examples, and troubleshooting for 403 and permission errors (7 of 15). API v3 paths and a 3.0.0 server card, with no changelog found (6 of 15). 10+10+12+5+7+6 = 50.
ButterCMS 78
Public OpenAPI 3.1 files for the whole API, the Read API, the Write API and webhooks, linked from the docs index. The combined file has 28 operations on 4 November 2026, 18 reads and 10 writes (25). A docs llms.txt and a Markdown copy of every docs page (10). All operations have a description, and the write descriptions state field rules, defaults and what the API cannot do. The docs say when to use an SDK and when to call REST (16 of 20). Request bodies have required fields and 40 enums in the combined file, but the fields object depends on each account's page types and no endpoint returns those types (9 of 15). 328 examples in the combined file and a page of status codes with causes and sample bodies (13 of 15). The version is in the /v2 path. No API changelog was found (5 of 15).
Agent ergonomics ButterCMS +28
BCMS 36
45 MCP tools, more than 30 (5). We added 3 because keys without schema permission hide the schema tools (8 of 25). No pagination or filter parameters were found in the docs read (6 of 20). Error guidance covers 403 and permission errors only (8 of 20). Annotations weren't readable; entry history and trash give a way back, and the docs say to list and confirm ids before deletes (6 of 20). One JavaScript client and a CLI (8 of 15). 8+6+8+6+8 = 36.
ButterCMS 64
Responses are sized with page_size, a fields selection, exclude_body on posts and levels for reference depth (20 of 25). Page and offset pagination with meta.count, filters on field values and order (20). Errors are documented with causes, but bodies come in three shapes (detail, a field map, error) with no stable codes, and a write answers 202 with status: pending and no identifier, so the result has to be read back (11 of 20). No idempotency keys. Page and post slugs are unique, which limits duplicates, and collection items have no such guard (4 of 20). Writes default to draft, but page creation needs every field key of the page type. Ten SDKs are listed and the docs say to call REST for writes (9 of 15).
Payments & pricing BCMS +10
BCMS 30
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan and seat prices are public; no per-call prices (10). 14-day trial with no card on every plan (20). Signup with GitHub or Google in a browser, keys made in the dashboard (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.
ButterCMS 20
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Four plans have public dollar prices, the Write API add-on's price is not published and Enterprise is through sales (10). The Free plan needs no card and covers the Read API. Writing needs a paid plan and the add-on, and we did not establish whether the 14-day trial includes it (10 of 20). A person signs up in a browser, and the write token needs a purchase or a request to support (0).
Security & auth BCMS +8
BCMS 39
Keys are scoped per template and media and can be revoked and rotated (25), less 10 because the MCP key is accepted only as ?mcpKey= in the URL and REST examples pass apiKey the same way (15 of 30). Scoped keys, schema tools gated by key, and scoped delete permission; no approval step (12 of 20). Entries hold text written by people and no prompt-injection guidance was found (3 of 15). Entry history and log history (2 days on Hobby, 30 on Pro) let the operator see what an agent changed (9 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy or certification was found (0). 15+12+3+9+0 = 39.
ButterCMS 31
One read token and one write token per account, with no scopes, and the docs say rotation is done by contacting support (20 for plain revocable keys, less the fixed 10 because the read token is documented as an auth_token query parameter, 10 of 30). That token also returns drafts with preview=1. The read token is a read-only credential and writes default to draft. No approval step for API writes was found, and approval workflows are listed on Enterprise (10 of 20). The API returns stored content, and no guidance on treating it as untrusted input was found (3 of 15). Audit logs and access logs are listed as Enterprise functions, and versions record who saved them (6 of 15). A responsible-disclosure section in the docs gives security@buttercms.com and says reports get a prompt response, with no stated time, and the security page describes penetration tests. No security.txt, no bug bounty, and the certifications listed are those of the AWS and Heroku data centres (7 of 20).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | BCMS | ButterCMS | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 15 | 82 | ButterCMS +67 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 50 | 78 | ButterCMS +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 36 | 64 | ButterCMS +28 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 39 | 31 | BCMS +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 20 | BCMS +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 16 | 17 | ButterCMS +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 52 | 52 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| Total | F 33.5/100 | D 51.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | BCMS | ButterCMS |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Becomes tech, LLC | ButterCMS LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | https://app.thebcms.com/api/v3/mcp | https://api.buttercms.com/v2 |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under ButterCMS's terms of service. The SDKs and starter projects on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 45 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-03-16 | 2025-09-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-30 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-30 | 2022-08-15 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 396 npm/wk | 6.9k npm/wk |
How the scores have moved
BCMS
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
BCMS
BCMS gives agents 45 MCP tools over templates, entries, statuses, history and media, with keys scoped per template and agent guidance in llms.txt, from $5 a month. The MCP key can only travel in the URL, and no status page, rate limits, changelog or security policy were found.
ButterCMS
The Read and Write APIs have a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, Markdown docs and a status page with no incident since October 2025. The Write API is a paid add-on from the $249 plan, capped at 2,000 or 5,000 calls a month. Writes answer 202 with no identifier, and no SDK has had a release since September 2025.
Before you call either
BCMS
- Keep the MCP URL out of logs and shared config, since the key is inside it
- Call get-all-templates first and mutate only once you have template and entry ids
- Ask for a key scoped to the templates the task needs, without schema permission unless it changes the model
- List and confirm entry ids with the user before calling delete-entries
- Use the bcms-content CLI for scripted runs that need JSON output and exit codes
ButterCMS
- End every path with a slash. A missing slash returns a 301, and the vendor counts the redirect and the retry as two API calls
- Send the write token only as
Authorization: Token <token>. Theauth_tokenquery parameter works for reads only - On page creation send every field key of the page type, with empty strings for fields left blank
- A 202 means queued, not saved. Read the entry back with
preview=1to confirm, and check a slug exists before retrying a create - Call the REST API directly for writes. The JavaScript SDK 3.0.3 has list, retrieve and search methods only
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, BCMS or ButterCMS?
ButterCMS scores 51.4 (D) on agent readiness against BCMS's 33.5 (F), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. BCMS leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.
Do BCMS and ButterCMS need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call BCMS and ButterCMS without installing anything?
Yes. BCMS has a hosted endpoint at https://app.thebcms.com/api/v3/mcp and ButterCMS at https://api.buttercms.com/v2.
Other comparisons with BCMS or ButterCMS
- BCMS vs Contentstack
- BCMS vs Cosmic
- BCMS vs DatoCMS
- BCMS vs Directus
- BCMS vs dotCMS
- BCMS vs Ghost
- BCMS vs Hygraph
- BCMS vs Kontent.ai
- BCMS vs Payload
- BCMS vs Prismic
- BCMS vs Sanity
- BCMS vs Storyblok
- BCMS vs Strapi
- BCMS vs Webflow
- BCMS vs WordPress
- ButterCMS vs Contentstack
- ButterCMS vs Cosmic
- ButterCMS vs DatoCMS
- ButterCMS vs Directus
- ButterCMS vs dotCMS
- ButterCMS vs Ghost
- ButterCMS vs Hygraph
- ButterCMS vs Kontent.ai
- ButterCMS vs Payload
- ButterCMS vs Prismic
- ButterCMS vs Sanity
- ButterCMS vs Storyblok
- ButterCMS vs Strapi
- ButterCMS vs Webflow
- ButterCMS vs WordPress
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/bcms-vs-buttercms.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/bcms.json·/api/v1/tools/buttercms.json - From a terminal
anchor compare bcms buttercms(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "bcms", "b": "buttercms"}at/mcp, no key