# Drag vs Zendesk Support API (slim)

> Zendesk Support scores 68.7 (B) to Drag's 40 (E) for support conversations. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/drag-vs-zendesk.md (~4,700 tokens) · this version ~2,630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/drag-vs-zendesk.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/drag-vs-zendesk
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Zendesk Support API scores 68.7 (B) on agent readiness against Drag's 40 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Drag leads on payments & pricing. Both do support conversations.

- Drag: E 40, rank #1330 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/drag.min.md
- Zendesk Support API: B 68.7, rank #277 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zendesk.min.md
- Drag, good for Small teams running support@ or sales@ in Gmail who want an agent to triage, label, assign and draft replies. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 30 against 10. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card; Open source.
- Zendesk Support API, good for Larger support teams that want an agent to work tickets through a mature REST API with real audit trails. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 28; Schema & documentation, 83 against 71; Agent ergonomics, 77 against 43; Security & auth, 75 against 23; Maintenance & community, 81 against 43; Transparency & trust, 87 against 49.

| Category | Drag | Zendesk Support API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 28 | 68 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 71 | 83 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 43 | 77 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 23 | 75 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 10 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 43 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 49 | 87 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Drag | Zendesk Support API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | DragApp.com Ltd | Zendesk |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.dragapp.com/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Tools exposed | 47 | none |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `com.dragapp/mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-13 | 2026-10-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-13 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-03 | 2026-01-28 |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 21k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Zendesk Support API +52: Drag 23 (One API key per user that the docs say grants full access to the workspace, revocable in settings; the hosted server wraps it in an OAuth 2.1 flow with PKCE, but the key remains the access token (10). No read-only key or scopes; the server instructions tell the model to confirm sends when intent is unclear, and ChatGPT's plugin asks before sending (5 of 20). Tools return email and WhatsApp text from outside senders, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (0). No audit log of API or MCP actions found (0). Google CASA Tier 2, and the trust centre lists SOC 2 and GDPR, but no security.txt (404) or disclosure policy was found (8 of 20). 10 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 23.); Zendesk Support API 75 (OAuth 2.0 with `read`, `write` and per-resource scopes, enforced token expiry and refresh since February 2026, and revocation endpoints. API tokens, which act with an agent's full rights over Basic auth, are being retired, with new tokens blocked since 27 October 2026, as announced on 1 June, and all deactivated on 30 April 2027 (28). A read-only OAuth scope exists, with no approval step for writes (12). Ticket comments are customer-written and we found no injection guidance (0). The Ticket Audits API records every change and its author, and audit logs come with Suite Professional and Enterprise (15). SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, 27018, 27701 and 42001, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, a Bugcrowd programme and a PGP-signed security.txt, re-read on 1 November 2026, valid to 16 April 2027 (20).)
- Reliability, Zendesk Support API +40: Drag 28 (Graded as a hosted service on the MCP server at app.dragapp.com/mcp and REST API v2. No status page is linked and status.dragapp.com failed the TLS handshake (0). No readable incident history (5). The REST docs say rate limits apply without numbers; the hosted MCP server's source defaults to 60 calls a minute per key (5 of 15). The REST docs say to retry a 429 with exponential backoff, with no idempotency guidance for sends (8 of 15). No SLA found (0). Neither surface is labelled beta (10). 0 + 5 + 5 + 8 + 0 + 10 = 28.); Zendesk Support API 68 (status.zendesk.com exists, but it is drawn by script and, re-read on 1 November 2026, served only a page shell with no incidents, components or feed. Zendesk's help article on status notifications names only email and SMS subscriptions, so no readable history was found and we don't call the page's internal data endpoints. We couldn't confirm component history (15) or read the incident record (5). Both are our limitation, not a finding about Zendesk. Plan limits of 200, 400 and 700 requests a minute, 2,500 with the High Volume add-on, 30 updates per 10 minutes per user per ticket and 10 a minute on incremental exports, per the 1 October check (15). X-Rate-Limit and X-Rate-Limit-Remaining on responses and Retry-After on 429. Ticket updates can pass `safe_update` with `updated_stamp` to avoid collisions, but we found no idempotency key for ticket creation (13). Zendesk's service availability article guarantees 99.9 per cent availability of Zendesk Support for Premier Support customers on qualifying plans, with service credits. The 99.95 per cent uptime SLA on the pricing page, cited on 1 October, is the Talk call usage SLA (10). GA (10).)
- Maintenance & community, Zendesk Support API +38: Drag 43 (@dragapp/mcp-server 0.7.0 on npm on 13 August 2026, 85 days before this check; the repository had a commit on 6 November and its package.json reads 0.12.0 with no matching release (20). Only one dated release in the 90 days from 8 August, and no changelog (0). 43 commits since 6 July 2026 by the CTO; issues were not read (8 of 25). Domain-verified com.dragapp/mcp-server namespace, but the entry stops at 0.1.5 and lists only the stdio package, not the hosted remote (10 of 15). A secret-scan workflow and a tarball check before publish; no tests in CI (5 of 10). 20 + 0 + 8 + 10 + 5 = 43.); Zendesk Support API 81 (ZCLI v2.2.0, tagged on 26 October 2026, adds a `connectors:encryption-key` command and two fixes (30). In the 90 days from 3 August the developer changelog has entries on 26 August and 14 September 2026, and ZCLI has five tags, v1.2.0 (17 August), v1.3.0 (9 September), v2.0.0 (10 September), v2.1.0 (1 October) and v2.2.0, counted half as package tags, for 4.5 dated changes (20). Public developer changelog and community, and the client repositories merged changes in September 2026 (13). Ruby client v3.1.2 on 23 July 2026 is current, the PHP client's last tag is v4.1.0 from 16 January 2025 (10). Dependency and security bumps merged on 15 September in both clients, and ZCLI has a test workflow (8).)
- Transparency & trust, Zendesk Support API +38: Drag 49 (Closed service under terms naming DragApp.com Ltd, with the MCP server under MIT (20 of 30). The privacy policy (3 September 2026) says servers are in the US, says the MCP connector keeps no copy of the data it carries, and names Google Analytics, but gives no retention periods (12 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). Hosting at AWS in Virginia is stated and the trust centre has a subprocessor section we could not open past its root page (10 of 20). 20 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 42.); Zendesk Support API 87 (Closed service under a main services agreement (15). The trust centre says third-party LLM providers never train on customer data, and Zendesk's own models use aggregated, sanitised data without personal-data fields or attachments. We didn't read the privacy notice for retention periods (22). Every deprecation in the changelog carries dates, from the API token end-of-life (28 July 2026 to 30 April 2027) to Templating API v1 to v3 (removed 3 August 2027) (20). Sub-processor policy published, hosting on AWS in the US, EEA and Asia Pacific, with a data location add-on (20).)
- Agent ergonomics, Zendesk Support API +34: Drag 43 (47 MCP tools load by default, with no toolsets (5). Search and filter tools by label, assignee or status, and bulk moves; paging controls were not documented (10 of 20). REST errors return `error` and `message` with standard codes, and MCP error shapes weren't documented (8 of 20). Every tool sets readOnlyHint and destructiveHint, with sends marked destructive and open-world; no idempotency keys (15 of 20). One URL for the hosted server; the docs say official SDKs and a CLI are coming soon (5 of 15). 5 + 10 + 8 + 15 + 5 = 43.); Zendesk Support API 77 (No field selection, but `page[size]` up to 100 and sideloading of related records cut round trips (15). Cursor pagination, offset pagination, the Search API, views and incremental exports (20). Documented errors with codes and descriptions (17). `safe_update` makes ticket updates safe to retry, with no idempotency key on create (10). Official Ruby and PHP clients and the ZCLI, with sensible defaults (15).)
- Payments & pricing, Drag +20: Drag 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-seat plan prices are public, and AI credits are priced at $0.01, with nothing per API call (10). The 7-day trial needs no card and includes every Pro feature, API and MCP among them (20). A person signs up in a browser and copies a key from settings (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.); Zendesk Support API 10 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Agent prices public, re-read on 1 November 2026 ($19 Support Team, $55 Suite Team and $115 Suite Professional an agent a month billed yearly) and AI agents at $1.50 per committed or $2.00 per pay-as-you-go automated resolution, nothing per API call (10). No free plan. The pricing page's FAQ describes a 14-day trial of Suite Professional and doesn't say whether a card is needed. Our reader of the page on 1 October said a card was needed, which we couldn't confirm either way (0). A person signs up and creates an OAuth client in Admin Center (0).)