ButterCMS vs Hygraph

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, support rotates tokens, and the terms are an undated website document.

Hygraph

Tokens are limited by model, stage, locale and action, the GraphQL schema is typed and introspectable, and a hosted MCP server rejects delete and unpublish operations. Error bodies carry a message without a machine code, there are no idempotency keys, audit logs are Enterprise only, and no data processing agreement, sub-processor list or security.txt was found.

ButterCMS

1. 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
2. Send the write token only as Authorization: Token <token>. The auth_token query parameter works for reads only
3. On page creation send every field key of the page type, with empty strings for fields left blank
4. A 202 means queued, not saved. Read the entry back with preview=1 to confirm, and check a slug exists before retrying a create
5. Call the REST API directly for writes. The JavaScript SDK 3.0.3 has list, retrieve and search methods only

Hygraph

1. Send the Permanent Auth Token as Authorization: Bearer <token> to https://<region>.hygraph.com/v2/<projectId>/<environment>. Read the schema by introspection first, because every type is generated from the project's models
2. Mutations write to DRAFT. Call publish<Model> with to: [PUBLISHED] as a separate mutation, and pass locales to write or publish a localisation
3. Stay under the plan's limit for uncached requests (5 a second on Hobby, 25 on Growth) and its concurrent mutations (5 and 10). Back off exponentially on 429
4. Upload an asset with createAsset, then POST the file to the returned pre-signed URL, or pass uploadUrl for a remote file. The asset stays ASSET_CREATE_PENDING until processed
5. Schema changes go to the Management API through @hygraph/management-sdk or the MCP tool submit_batch_migration. Version restore has no documented mutation, so read <model>Version and write the old values back