# Factorial vs Zoho People

> Factorial scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on payments & pricing. Both do hr employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people.md (~2,050 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-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

Factorial scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on payments & pricing. Both do hr employees.

- Factorial: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #239 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/factorial.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/factorial.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

### Factorial (B)

Good for: An agent working for a company that already runs Factorial and needs employee records, leave requests with approval, attendance clock-ins, recruiting or expenses through one API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 88 against 77
- Schema & documentation, 77 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 58 against 48
- Security & auth, 65 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 48
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 73

Watch for: An API key grants every scope, cannot be narrowed and does not expire

### 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.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 10

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 | Factorial | Zoho People | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 88 | 77 | Factorial +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 43 | Factorial +34 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 58 | 48 | Factorial +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 60 | Factorial +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 30 | Zoho People +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 48 | Factorial +36 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 73 | Factorial +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.3 · B** | **55 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Factorial | Zoho People |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Everyday Software, S.L. | Zoho |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.factorialhr.com` | `https://people.zoho.com/api` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Factorial's terms and conditions. The TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT | Proprietary service under the Zoho Terms of Service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-08-01 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2022-03-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-01-01 | 2025-12-22 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 7 stars, 1.4k npm/wk, 1.1k PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Factorial.** A public OpenAPI 3.1 definition covers 615 operations, including leave approval and employee termination, and OAuth apps can be limited to 33 scopes. API keys always grant every scope and never expire. No idempotency keys exist, and a request to an expired API version is answered in an older schema with no error.

**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

### Factorial

1. Send an API key in `x-api-key` and an OAuth token in `Authorization: Bearer`. The key is JWT-formatted but is rejected as a bearer token
2. Pin the version in the path, such as `/api/2026-10-01/resources/...`, and migrate within a year. Expired versions answer in an older schema without an error
3. Treat a 200 with an empty body as a credential from the other environment. Production is `api.factorialhr.com` and demo is `api.eu2.demo.factorial.dev`
4. Page with `limit=100` and pass `meta.end_cursor` as `after_id`. A larger limit is capped at 100
5. Check whether a record exists before retrying a create. Retry only 429 and 5xx with backoff, and branch on `code` for 422 because messages are localised

### 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, Factorial or Zoho People?

Factorial scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on payments & pricing.

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

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

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

Yes. Factorial has a hosted endpoint at https://api.factorialhr.com and Zoho People at https://people.zoho.com/api.


## For agents

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

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