# Grist vs SeaTable

> SeaTable scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Grist's 50.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do sheets records. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-seatable
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-seatable.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-seatable.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-seatable.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

SeaTable scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Grist's 50.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do sheets records.

- Grist: grade D, 50.1/100, rank #597 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grist.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grist.json
- SeaTable: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #241 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/seatable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/seatable.json

## Which one, for what

### Grist (D)

Good for: Teams that want a relational spreadsheet with Python formulas and per-document OAuth grants for an agent, or that need to self-host.

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No status page was found. status.getgrist.com redirects to a signup form, and the site footer and help centre link to none

### SeaTable (B)

Good for: Teams that want typed tables hosted in Germany or on their own server, with an agent reading and writing rows through a per-base token or the official MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 69 against 39
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 63
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 57
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Grist loses 4 points for them

Watch for: Monthly API call quotas by plan, 3,000 for a whole Free team, 10,000 per user on Plus and 50,000 per user on Enterprise


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Grist | SeaTable | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 39 | 69 | SeaTable +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 81 | SeaTable +18 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 74 | SeaTable +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 59 | Grist +3 |
| 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) | 78 | 76 | Grist +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 75 | SeaTable +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.1 · D** | **66.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Grist | SeaTable |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Grist Labs Inc. | SeaTable GmbH |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://docs.getgrist.com/api` | `https://cloud.seatable.io` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the community edition in gristlabs/grist-core. The full edition, which adds the MCP server, the OAuth server and audit log streaming, is proprietary and needs an activation key after a 30-day trial. Docs are CC BY-SA 4.0 | Proprietary cloud service under the Terms of Service for SeaTable Cloud. The MCP server is MIT. SeaTable Server Enterprise Edition is licensed under an EULA |
| Tools exposed | 34 | 21 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.seatable/seatable` |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-04 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2019-04-01 | 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 | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 12k stars, 341 npm/wk, 240 PyPI/wk | 103 npm/wk, 1.7k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Grist.** OAuth tokens carry seven scopes, can be limited to chosen documents and expire after an hour, and the REST API has a public OpenAPI file with an add-or-update call. No status page, SLA terms, DPA or security.txt was found, and the docs say the hosted service has no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 audit.

**SeaTable.** API tokens are limited to one base and to read-only or read-write, and the official MCP server marks every tool as read-only or destructive. The Free plan allows 3,000 API calls a month in total, and base calls are capped at 200 a minute. The status page showed the base API degraded for 0.77 per cent of 30 days.

## Before you call either

### Grist

1. Connect through OAuth, not an API key. Ask for `doc:read` alone for reading, and have the user pick Selected resources on the consent screen
2. Keep `doc.schema:write` off unless needed. The docs say formula editing lets its holder read any data in the document whatever the access rules
3. Send requests for one document one at a time. The eleventh concurrent request gets 429, and no Retry-After header is documented
4. Use `PUT /api/docs/{docId}/tables/{tableId}/records` with `require` to add or update by key, so a retried write doesn't create a duplicate row
5. Use the `/records` endpoints, not the deprecated `/data` ones, and split large writes to stay under the 1 MB body limit

### SeaTable

1. Create an API token for the one base with read-only permission unless writes are needed, then exchange it at `/api/v2.1/dtable/app-access-token/` for a Base-Token
2. Renew the Base-Token before it expires after 3 days, and send it as `Authorization: Bearer` to `/api-gateway/api/v2/dtables/{base_uuid}/`
3. Read `x-ratelimit-remaining` and `x-ratelimit-reset` on every base call. SeaTable Cloud allows 200 base calls a minute and answers 429 with no body
4. Batch writes to save the monthly quota. One call appends or updates up to 1,000 rows over REST and 100 over MCP
5. Over MCP, prefer `update_rows` and `delete_rows` to `query_sql`, which can run UPDATE and DELETE, and call `get_schema` before writing

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Grist or SeaTable?

SeaTable scores 66.3 (B) on agent readiness against Grist's 50.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Grist and SeaTable need an API key?

Grist takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SeaTable needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Grist and SeaTable without installing anything?

Yes. Grist has a hosted endpoint at https://docs.getgrist.com/api and SeaTable at https://cloud.seatable.io.

### Are Grist and SeaTable open source?

Grist is open source (Apache-2.0 for the community edition in gristlabs/grist-core. The full edition, which adds the MCP server, the OAuth server and audit log streaming, is proprietary and needs an activation key after a 30-day trial. Docs are CC BY-SA 4.0). No open-source release is listed for SeaTable.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Grist or SeaTable

- [Coda (Superhuman Docs) vs Grist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coda-vs-grist.md)
- [Coda (Superhuman Docs) vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coda-vs-seatable.md)
- [Google Sheets API vs Grist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-sheets-api-vs-grist.md)
- [Google Sheets API vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-sheets-api-vs-seatable.md)
- [Grist vs Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Graph workbook API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-microsoft-excel-graph.md)
- [Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Graph workbook API) vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-excel-graph-vs-seatable.md)
- [Airtable vs Grist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-grist.md)
- [Airtable vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtable-vs-seatable.md)
- [Baserow vs Grist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserow-vs-grist.md)
- [Baserow vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baserow-vs-seatable.md)
- [Grist vs NocoDB](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-nocodb.md)
- [Grist vs Smartsheet API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-smartsheet.md)
- [Grist vs Teable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-teable.md)
- [NocoDB vs SeaTable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nocodb-vs-seatable.md)
- [SeaTable vs Smartsheet API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/seatable-vs-smartsheet.md)
- [SeaTable vs Teable](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/seatable-vs-teable.md)