# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- 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: 2026-10-05

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 + MCP: grade C, 57.5/100, rank #292 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cal-com.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cal-com.json
- Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API: grade BB, 71.3/100, rank #87 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nylas-calendar.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nylas-calendar.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Cal.com API v2 + MCP for nothing in particular (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 | Cal.com API v2 + MCP | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 75 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 91 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 71 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +21 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 59 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 88 | Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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

1. Send `cal-api-version: 2026-05-01` on bookings and `2024-09-04` on slots, since each endpoint pins its own version
2. Append `?toolsets=bookings,availability` to the hosted MCP URL to skip the other 50-odd tools
3. Page bookings with `pagination.nextCursor`, not offsets
4. Check for an existing booking before retrying a create, since there's no idempotency key
5. Use `cal_` test keys while building so bookings don't reach real calendars

### Nylas Calendar and Scheduler API

1. Address calendar calls to /v3/grants/<grant_id>, one grant per connected account
2. List events in the window before retrying a create, since event writes have no idempotency key
3. Point the MCP client at mcp.eu.nylas.com if the application lives in the EU region
4. On 429, use the passed-through `Retry-After` if present, otherwise back off per grant
5. Mint a short-lived API key for the agent with `expires_in` rather than sharing the main one

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