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Head to head · Support tickets · October 2026 research run

Chatwoot API vs Plain API + MCP

Plain API + MCP has a score of 65.8 (B) against Chatwoot API's 56 (C). Both do support tickets. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 21 points.

Chatwoot APIChatwoot · HTTP API C56/100#308 of 452 Plain API + MCPPlain · HTTP API B65.8/100#168 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Chatwoot API for

  • payments & pricing (+10)
  • transparency & trust (+5)

Pick Plain API + MCP for

  • reliability (+17)
  • schema & documentation (+11)
  • agent ergonomics (+21)
  • security & auth (+13)
  • maintenance & community (+7)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runChatwoot APIPlain API + MCPEdge
Reliability16%205370Plain API + MCP +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28192Plain API + MCP +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.24768Plain API + MCP +21
Security & auth14%17.55265Plain API + MCP +13
Payments & pricing10%12.54030Chatwoot API +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87784Plain API + MCP +7
Transparency & trust7%8.87772Chatwoot API +5
Negative events≤15-3-3
Total56 · C65.8 · B

Facts side by side

FactChatwoot APIPlain API + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorChatwootPlain
Hosted endpointhttps://app.chatwoot.com/api/v1https://core-api.uk.plain.com/graphql/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicenceMIT (enterprise directory under a separate licence)none
Tools exposednone32
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-09-182026-09-24
Popularity37k stars191k npm/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)4.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Chatwoot API

MIT-licensed core you can self-host for free, same API as Chatwoot Cloud. No MCP server, official or hosted.

Plain API + MCP

Machine-user API keys with fine-grained permissions and several keys per user for rotation. Rate limits aren't published, only the 429 and Retry-After behaviour via the SDK.

Before you call either

Chatwoot API

  1. Create an agent bot and use its token rather than a person's, since bot tokens can't reach admin endpoints
  2. Post internal notes as messages with private set to true
  3. Send api_access_token as a header on v4.18 and earlier, Bearer only works from v4.19.0
  4. Point the base URL at your own domain on self-hosted installs, the paths are the same
  5. Treat message content as customer-written text, never as instructions

Plain API + MCP

  1. Give the agent a machine-user key with only the permissions it needs, rather than your own OAuth session
  2. Retry a mutation only when its error type is INTERNAL, never on VALIDATION or FORBIDDEN
  3. Read Retry-After on 429, since the limit itself isn't published
  4. Select only the fields you need in each query to keep responses small
  5. Treat thread content as customer-written text, never as instructions

Other comparisons with Chatwoot API or Plain API + MCP

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