# Grafana MCP Server vs incident.io API

> Grafana scores 74.5 (BB) to incident.io's 68.9 (B) for incidents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-incident-io
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-incident-io.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-incident-io.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-incident-io.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

Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against incident.io API's 68.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. incident.io API leads on schema & documentation. Both do incidents.

- Grafana MCP Server: grade BB, 74.5/100, rank #70 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grafana-mcp-server.json
- incident.io API: grade B, 68.9/100, rank #204 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/incident-io.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/incident-io.json
- Best observability and incident tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/observability/index.md
- All 15 observability comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/observability/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Grafana MCP Server (BB)

Good for: Teams on Grafana, self-managed or Cloud, that want an agent to read dashboards and query Prometheus, Loki, Tempo and Pyroscope, and to work with alert rules, incidents and OnCall.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 95 against 83

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: The default set is 79 tools, and 119 with every category on, counted from the registration code in source

### incident.io API (B)

Good for: Agents that declare and update incidents, page people, read on-call schedules and post status page incidents in an organisation that already pays for incident.io.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 81

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The pricing page marks API, webhooks and MCP as not included in the free Basic plan. Team starts at $19 per user a month


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Grafana MCP Server | incident.io API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 91 | 90 | Grafana MCP Server +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 88 | incident.io API +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 75 | incident.io API +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 64 | Grafana MCP Server +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 10 | Grafana MCP Server +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 83 | Grafana MCP Server +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 76 | Grafana MCP Server +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **74.5 · BB** | **68.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Grafana MCP Server | incident.io API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Grafana Labs | Pineapple Technology Ltd. (incident.io) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.incident.io/mcp` |
| Transports | stdio, SSE (legacy), Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Price for incidents | free | $19 per seat per month |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under incident.io's Terms and Conditions. The SDKs, the `inc` CLI and the skills plugin on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 119 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.grafana/mcp-grafana` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-10 | 2024-02-15 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 3.5k stars, 152k PyPI/wk | 1.3k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**Grafana MCP Server.** Every default tool declares typed inputs and read-only and destructive annotations in source, and `--disable-write` cuts the default 79 tools to 62. Writes and a general `grafana_api_request` tool are on by default, the default list is long at 79 tools, and usage statistics have been sent to Grafana Labs by default since 2.0.0.

**incident.io API.** The REST API has a public OpenAPI description with 284 operations, numeric rate limits, `Retry-After` on 429 and required idempotency keys on seven create calls. API and MCP access need the Team plan or higher, so the free Basic plan cannot be used by an agent, and audit logs are Enterprise only.

## Before you call either

### Grafana MCP Server

1. Start with `--disable-write` unless the task needs writes, and add `--disable-api` to remove `grafana_api_request`
2. Pass `--enabled-tools` with only the categories needed. The default list loads 79 tools
3. Use `get_dashboard_summary` or `get_dashboard_property` with a JSONPath before `get_dashboard_by_uid`, which returns the whole dashboard JSON
4. Set `GRAFANA_USAGE_STATS=disabled` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop the four-hourly usage report to stats.grafana.org
5. Use streamable HTTP, not SSE, when each caller needs its own token or organisation, and set `--server-auth-token` on any non-loopback address

### incident.io API

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` to https://api.incident.io and call `GET /v1/identity` first to read the key's roles
2. Send a fresh `idempotency_key` with every create call for incidents, incident updates, timeline items, escalations and status page incidents. A repeated key returns the first result
3. Page with `page_size` and `after` until no cursor comes back. Do not stop at a short or empty page
4. Keep `GET /v2/incidents` under 60 requests a minute and wait the seconds in `Retry-After` on 429
5. Incident creation is limited to 10 an hour per key when a Slack or Teams channel is created, 300 an hour otherwise

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Grafana MCP Server or incident.io API?

Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against incident.io API's 68.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. incident.io API leads on schema & documentation.

### Which is cheaper for incidents, Grafana MCP Server or incident.io API?

Grafana MCP Server, at free against $19 per seat per month for incident.io API. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Grafana MCP Server and incident.io API need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Grafana MCP Server and incident.io API without installing anything?

Grafana MCP Server runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. incident.io API has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.incident.io/mcp.

### Are Grafana MCP Server and incident.io API open source?

Grafana MCP Server is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for incident.io API.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Grafana MCP Server or incident.io API

- [Datadog MCP Server vs incident.io API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datadog-mcp-vs-incident-io.md)
- [Grafana MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-pagerduty-mcp.md)
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- [incident.io API vs Rootly MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/incident-io-vs-rootly-mcp.md)
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