Head to head · Calendar read · October 2026 research run
Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Microsoft Graph Calendar API
Microsoft Graph Calendar API has a score of 65.6 (B) against Cal.com API v2 + MCP's 57.5 (C). Both do calendar read. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 38 points.
Which one, for what
Pick Cal.com API v2 + MCP for
- transparency & trust (+8)
Pick Microsoft Graph Calendar API for
- reliability (+5)
- schema & documentation (+7)
- agent ergonomics (+38)
- security & auth (+9)
- payments & pricing (+5)
- maintenance & community (+26)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Microsoft Graph Calendar API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 60 | 65 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 76 | 83 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 50 | 88 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +38 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 65 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 35 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +5 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 50 | 76 | Microsoft Graph Calendar API +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 81 | 73 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| Total | 57.5 · C | 65.6 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Microsoft Graph Calendar API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Cal.com | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cal.com/v2 | https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0 |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Freemium | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary (hosted product since April 2026). The @calcom/cal-mcp package and repository carry no licence | MIT (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | 63 | 11 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-07-17 |
| Popularity | 30 stars, 786 npm/wk | 834 stars, 2.7M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |
Verdicts
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.
Microsoft Graph Calendar API
findMeetingTimes suggests slots across attendees and rooms, and getSchedule returns free/busy for many people. 4 concurrent requests per app per mailbox.
Before you call either
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
Microsoft Graph Calendar API
- Send
Prefer: outlook.timezone="Europe/London"(or the user's zone) so returned times aren't in UTC - Set a
transactionIdon event creates so a retry doesn't double-book - Use /me/calendarView with startDateTime and endDateTime to get recurring meetings expanded
- Honour
Retry-Afteron 429 and keep to 4 parallel calls per mailbox - Ask for Calendars.ReadBasic when you don't need event bodies
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