Grist vs Smartsheet API + MCP

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.

Smartsheet API + MCP

The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.0.3 spec with 187 operations, Markdown docs and llms.txt, and the hosted MCP server loads its 83 documented tools by toolset. API access needs a Business plan or higher, and the status page lists eight incidents marked major or critical between 15 July and 21 September 2026.

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

Smartsheet API + MCP

1. Send writes to one sheet one at a time. Parallel updates with the same token return error 4004
2. Batch row changes, up to 500 rows a call, and add allowPartialSuccess=true to get per-row failures instead of a failed batch
3. On error 4003 (HTTP 429) wait at least 60 seconds before retrying. The limit is 300 requests a minute per token, 30 for attachments and cell history
4. Through MCP, call get_columns before filtering or writing. Column names are case-sensitive and guesses fail validation
5. Use the regional host that matches the account (api.smartsheet.com, .eu or .au). Tokens don't work across regions