Head to head · Calendar read · October 2026 research run
Cal.com API v2 + MCP vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API has a score of 71.3 (BB) against Cal.com API v2 + MCP's 57.5 (C). Both do calendar read. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 38 points.
Cal.com API v2 + MCPCal.com · HTTP API
C57.5/100#292 of 452
Nylas Calendar and Scheduler APINylas · HTTP API
BB71.3/100#87 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Cal.com API v2 + MCP for
No category where it leads by five points or more.
Pick Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API for
- reliability (+15)
- schema & documentation (+15)
- agent ergonomics (+21)
- payments & pricing (+10)
- maintenance & community (+38)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 60 | 75 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +15 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 76 | 91 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 50 | 71 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +21 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 59 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 40 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 50 | 88 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 81 | 79 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 57.5 · C | 71.3 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Cal.com | Nylas |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cal.com/v2 | https://api.us.nylas.com/v3 |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| 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 | 38 |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 30 stars, 786 npm/wk | 181 stars, 281k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/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.
Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
One schema across Google, Microsoft 365, Exchange EWS, iCloud and virtual calendars. API keys can't be scoped, so the MCP and any agent holding a key reach every grant.
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
Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
- Address calendar calls to /v3/grants/<grant_id>, one grant per connected account
- List events in the window before retrying a create, since event writes have no idempotency key
- Point the MCP client at mcp.eu.nylas.com if the application lives in the EU region
- On 429, use the passed-through
Retry-Afterif present, otherwise back off per grant - Mint a short-lived API key for the agent with
expires_inrather than sharing the main one
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- Calendly API + MCP vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
- Cronofy API vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
- Google Calendar API vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
- Microsoft Graph Calendar API vs Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API
Machine-readable
/api/v1/tools/cal-com.json·/api/v1/tools/nylas-calendar.json- This page as Markdown,
/compare/cal-com-vs-nylas-calendar.md