# Grist vs Teable

> Teable scores 61 (C) 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-teable
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-teable.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-teable.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grist-vs-teable.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

Teable scores 61 (C) 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
- Teable: grade C, 61/100, rank #379 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/teable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/teable.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.

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

### Teable (C)

Good for: Teams that want Airtable-style typed tables on PostgreSQL that they can also self-host, with an agent reading and writing records through tokens limited by scope and project, or through the vendor's CLI and skill.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 72 against 39
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 63
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 57

Watch for: The OpenAPI file documents only 200 and 201 responses for nearly every operation, and the error page lists HTTP statuses without a table of error codes


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Grist | Teable | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 39 | 72 | Teable +33 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 75 | Teable +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 65 | Teable +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 62 | even |
| 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 | 64 | Teable +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **50.1 · D** | **61 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Grist | Teable |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Grist Labs Inc. | Teable AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://docs.getgrist.com/api` | `https://app.teable.ai/api` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or 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 | AGPL-3.0 with additional brand terms for the backend and web app, MIT for the packages directory. Enterprise functions and the `@teable/cli` package (ISC on npm) are built in a private repository |
| Tools exposed | 34 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-05-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2019-04-01 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 12k stars, 341 npm/wk, 240 PyPI/wk | 22k stars, 179 npm/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.

**Teable.** Personal access tokens and OAuth tokens carry per-action scopes, and tokens can be limited to chosen spaces and projects. The public OpenAPI file covers 841 operations. Error responses beyond 200 and 201 are missing from that file, no idempotency keys were found, and the cloud allows 10 requests a second on every plan.

## 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

### Teable

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <token>` to `https://app.teable.ai/api`. A 403 with code `restricted_resource` usually means a missing scope or a project outside the token's list
2. Page records with `take` of 100 at most. Personal keys created on Teable Cloud since 10 September 2026 are capped at 100 a request
3. Ask for totals from `/api/table/{tableId}/aggregation/row-count`. Record lists stopped returning them by default on 2 September 2026
4. Keep to 10 requests a second, back off on 429, and check before retrying a failed write because no idempotency key exists
5. Pass `fieldKeyType=id` so renamed fields don't break writes, and leave `typecast` off unless values need converting

## Questions

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

Teable scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Grist's 50.1 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

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

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

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

Yes. Grist has a hosted endpoint at https://docs.getgrist.com/api and Teable at https://app.teable.ai/api.

### Are Grist and Teable open source?

Yes. 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). Teable is open source (AGPL-3.0 with additional brand terms for the backend and web app, MIT for the packages directory. Enterprise functions and the `@teable/cli` package (ISC on npm) are built in a private repository).


## For agents

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

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