# Deel vs Zoho People

> Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do hr employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-zoho-people
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-zoho-people.md (~1,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-zoho-people.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-zoho-people.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: 2026-10-08

Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do hr employees.

- Deel: grade B, 69.1/100, rank #168 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deel.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deel.json
- Zoho People: grade C, 55/100, rank #523 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zoho-people.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zoho-people.json

## Which one, for what

### Deel (B)

Good for: A company that already runs HR, contractors, EOR or payroll on Deel and wants an agent to read the directory, update personal information, file and review time off, follow onboarding and fetch compliance documents.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 88 against 77
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 48

Watch for: 5 requests a second shared by every token in an organisation, with no rate limit headers on REST responses per the rate limits page

### Zoho People (C)

Good for: An agent working inside a company that already runs Zoho People on a paid plan, for directory reads, leave requests, attendance and timesheet entries at modest volume.

Watch for: No OpenAPI spec, official SDK or dated API changelog found. The product What's New page has no API entries for 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Deel | Zoho People | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 88 | 77 | Deel +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 43 | Deel +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 48 | Deel +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 64 | 60 | Deel +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 48 | Deel +22 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 73 | Zoho People +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.1 · B** | **55 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Deel | Zoho People |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Deel, Inc. | Zoho |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.letsdeel.com/rest` | `https://people.zoho.com/api` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Deel's platform terms. The Deel CLI on GitHub is MIT | Proprietary service under the Zoho Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | 86 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-08-01 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2022-03-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2025-12-22 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 17 npm/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Deel.** The API has 506 operations in public OpenAPI 3.1 specs, about 90 read and write OAuth scopes, a sandbox and a dated versioning policy with one year of deprecation notice. The limit is 5 requests a second for a whole organisation, and the legal documents load only with JavaScript, so data handling terms weren't read.

**Zoho People.** The REST API covers employee forms, leave, attendance, timesheets, files and learning, with per-endpoint rate limits and Markdown docs listed in an llms.txt. No OpenAPI spec, official SDK or dated API changelog was found, the Free plan has no API access, and several scopes come only as ALL.

## Before you call either

### Deel

1. Queue calls to stay under 5 requests a second for the whole organisation. Other integrations on the same account share the limit
2. Send `X-Version: 2026-01-01` on REST calls, and watch `X-State`, `Deprecation` and `Sunset` response headers
3. Send a UUID `Idempotency-Key` on POST and PATCH. Only retry a 5xx on a write when the request carried one
4. Test against https://api-staging.letsdeel.com/rest with a sandbox token. Production and sandbox tokens aren't interchangeable
5. Request read scopes only (people:read, time-off:read) for a read-only agent. Rejecting a time-off request is irreversible

### Zoho People

1. Use the accounts host and API host of the organisation's data centre. Tokens issued in one region fail in another
2. Stay under each page's threshold, often 30 calls a minute. Exceeding it locks that endpoint for five minutes
3. Page form records with `sIndex` and `limit`, at most 200 a call, and use `modifiedtime` to fetch only changes
4. Look up form and field label names with `/api/forms` before writing. `inputData` takes label names, and lookup fields take record IDs
5. Send the refresh token and client secret in the POST body, not the query string, and store the refresh token, which never expires

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Deel or Zoho People?

Deel scores 69.1 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Deel and Zoho People need an API key?

Deel takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Zoho People uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Deel and Zoho People without installing anything?

Yes. Deel has a hosted endpoint at https://api.letsdeel.com/rest and Zoho People at https://people.zoho.com/api.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Deel or Zoho People

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- [BambooHR vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-zoho-people.md)
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- [Factorial vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people.md)
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- [Rippling vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rippling-vs-zoho-people.md)