# ButterCMS vs Hygraph

> Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) to ButterCMS's 53.3 (D) for content management. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-hygraph
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-hygraph.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-hygraph.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-hygraph.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: 2026-10-09

Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against ButterCMS's 53.3 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do content management.

- ButterCMS: grade D, 53.3/100, rank #711 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/buttercms.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/buttercms.json
- Hygraph: grade B, 69.3/100, rank #191 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hygraph.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hygraph.json
- Best headless CMS and website publishing for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/cms/index.md
- All 91 cms comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cms/index.md

## Which one, for what

### ButterCMS (D)

Good 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.

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

### Hygraph (B)

Good for: Teams on Hygraph who want an agent to create, localise and publish entries, upload assets or change schema, with delete and unpublish kept out of reach on MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 89 against 83
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 64
- Security & auth, 63 against 36
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 74 against 27
- Transparency & trust, 60 against 51

Watch for: GraphQL error bodies carry a message and a `requestId` with no machine-readable code, and only asset transformation 429 responses are documented with `Retry-After`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ButterCMS | Hygraph | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 83 | 89 | Hygraph +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 78 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 72 | Hygraph +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 36 | 63 | Hygraph +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 35 | Hygraph +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 27 | 74 | Hygraph +47 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 60 | Hygraph +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **53.3 · D** | **69.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ButterCMS | Hygraph |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ButterCMS LLC | Hygraph GmbH |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.buttercms.com/v2` | `https://mcp.hygraph.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under ButterCMS's terms of service. The SDKs and starter projects on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service under Hygraph GmbH's Terms of Service. The `@hygraph/management-sdk` package is MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 17 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2025-09-04 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-08-15 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 6.9k npm/wk | 52 stars, 8.6k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

## Before you call either

### 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

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, ButterCMS or Hygraph?

Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against ButterCMS's 53.3 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do ButterCMS and Hygraph need an API key?

ButterCMS needs an API key. Hygraph takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call ButterCMS and Hygraph without installing anything?

Yes. ButterCMS has a hosted endpoint at https://api.buttercms.com/v2 and Hygraph at https://mcp.hygraph.com/mcp.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with ButterCMS or Hygraph

- [ButterCMS vs Contentstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-contentstack.md)
- [ButterCMS vs DatoCMS](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-datocms.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Directus](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-directus.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Ghost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-ghost.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Kontent.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-kontent-ai.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Payload](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-payload.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Prismic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-prismic.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Sanity](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-sanity.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Storyblok](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-storyblok.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Strapi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-strapi.md)
- [ButterCMS vs Webflow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-webflow.md)
- [ButterCMS vs WordPress](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/buttercms-vs-wordpress.md)
- [Contentstack vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/contentstack-vs-hygraph.md)
- [DatoCMS vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datocms-vs-hygraph.md)
- [Directus vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-hygraph.md)
- [Ghost vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-vs-hygraph.md)
- [Hygraph vs Kontent.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-kontent-ai.md)
- [Hygraph vs Payload](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-payload.md)
- [Hygraph vs Prismic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-prismic.md)
- [Hygraph vs Sanity](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-sanity.md)
- [Hygraph vs Storyblok](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-storyblok.md)
- [Hygraph vs Strapi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-strapi.md)
- [Hygraph vs Webflow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-webflow.md)
- [Hygraph vs WordPress](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-wordpress.md)