# Directus vs Hygraph

> Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against Directus's 67.1 (B), and leads in 1 of 7 scored categories. Directus leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do cms content. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-hygraph
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-hygraph.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-hygraph.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-hygraph.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: 2026-10-09

Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against Directus's 67.1 (B), and leads in 1 of 7 scored categories. Directus leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do cms content.

- Directus: grade B, 67.1/100, rank #244 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/directus.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/directus.json
- Hygraph: grade B, 69.3/100, rank #182 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hygraph.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hygraph.json

## Which one, for what

### Directus (B)

Good for: Teams that already keep content in an SQL database and want an agent to edit items, files and the data model under a named user's permissions.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 68 against 63
- Payments & pricing, 55 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 74

Watch for: Version 12 (10 June 2026) added licence enforcement. The free Core tier allows 3 Studio seats, 25 collections and 5 flows, and an instance over its limits is locked after a grace period

### Hygraph (B)

Good for: Teams on Hygraph who want an agent to create, localise and publish entries, upload assets or change schema, with delete and unpublish kept out of reach on MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 89 against 82

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Directus loses 6 points for them

Watch for: GraphQL error bodies carry a message and a `requestId` with no machine-readable code, and only asset transformation 429 responses are documented with `Retry-After`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Directus | Hygraph | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 82 | 89 | Hygraph +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 78 | Directus +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 72 | Directus +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 63 | Directus +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 55 | 35 | Directus +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 74 | Directus +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 60 | Directus +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.1 · B** | **69.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Directus | Hygraph |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Monospace Inc. (Directus) | Hygraph GmbH |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.hygraph.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MSCL-1.0-GPL (Monospace Sustainable Core Licence 1.0), source-available with a licence key for paid tiers, each version converting to GPL-3.0 after four years. `@directus/sdk` is MIT | Proprietary service under Hygraph GmbH's Terms of Service. The `@hygraph/management-sdk` package is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 12 | 17 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-06-09 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 38k stars, 23k npm/wk | 52 stars, 8.6k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Directus.** The built-in MCP server works under the connecting user's permissions, supports OAuth limited to the MCP endpoint and blocks deletes unless an administrator allows them. Since version 12 a licence check caps the free Core tier at 3 Studio seats, 25 collections and 5 flows, and the default tool list carries about 79 KB of instructions.

**Hygraph.** Tokens are limited by model, stage, locale and action, the GraphQL schema is typed and introspectable, and a hosted MCP server rejects delete and unpublish operations. Error bodies carry a message without a machine code, there are no idempotency keys, audit logs are Enterprise only, and no data processing agreement, sub-processor list or security.txt was found.

## Before you call either

### Directus

1. Connect with OAuth or an `Authorization: Bearer` header. Don't put the token in the URL as `?access_token=`, where it can be logged
2. Use `/mcp?tool_mode=registry` when the client loads every tool definition. Default mode sends each tool's full instructions, about 79 KB in total
3. Read the `schema` tool before writing. Item payloads are untyped objects, so field names and types come only from the data model
4. Publish a version with `POST /versions/{id}/promote` over REST. The MCP `items` tool refuses system collections such as `directus_versions`
5. Count translation and junction tables against the 25-collection Core limit before creating collections

### Hygraph

1. Send the Permanent Auth Token as `Authorization: Bearer <token>` to `https://<region>.hygraph.com/v2/<projectId>/<environment>`. Read the schema by introspection first, because every type is generated from the project's models
2. Mutations write to DRAFT. Call `publish<Model>` with `to: [PUBLISHED]` as a separate mutation, and pass `locales` to write or publish a localisation
3. Stay under the plan's limit for uncached requests (5 a second on Hobby, 25 on Growth) and its concurrent mutations (5 and 10). Back off exponentially on 429
4. Upload an asset with `createAsset`, then POST the file to the returned pre-signed URL, or pass `uploadUrl` for a remote file. The asset stays `ASSET_CREATE_PENDING` until processed
5. Schema changes go to the Management API through `@hygraph/management-sdk` or the MCP tool `submit_batch_migration`. Version restore has no documented mutation, so read `<model>Version` and write the old values back

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Directus or Hygraph?

Hygraph scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against Directus's 67.1 (B), and leads in 1 of 7 scored categories. Directus leads on security & auth, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do Directus and Hygraph need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Directus and Hygraph without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Directus. Hygraph has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.hygraph.com/mcp.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Directus or Hygraph

- [Contentstack vs Directus](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/contentstack-vs-directus.md)
- [Contentstack vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/contentstack-vs-hygraph.md)
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- [DatoCMS vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datocms-vs-hygraph.md)
- [Directus vs Ghost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-ghost.md)
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- [Directus vs Prismic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-prismic.md)
- [Directus vs Sanity](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-sanity.md)
- [Directus vs Storyblok](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-storyblok.md)
- [Directus vs Strapi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-strapi.md)
- [Directus vs Webflow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-webflow.md)
- [Directus vs WordPress](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/directus-vs-wordpress.md)
- [Ghost vs Hygraph](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-vs-hygraph.md)
- [Hygraph vs Payload](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-payload.md)
- [Hygraph vs Prismic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-prismic.md)
- [Hygraph vs Sanity](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-sanity.md)
- [Hygraph vs Storyblok](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-storyblok.md)
- [Hygraph vs Strapi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-strapi.md)
- [Hygraph vs Webflow](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-webflow.md)
- [Hygraph vs WordPress](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hygraph-vs-wordpress.md)