# Health Gorilla vs Terra API

> Terra scores 65.9 (B) to Health Gorilla's 59.3 (C) for fhir servers. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-terra
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-terra.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-terra.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-terra.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: 2026-10-14

Terra API scores 65.9 (B) on agent readiness against Health Gorilla's 59.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Health Gorilla leads on transparency & trust. Both do fhir servers.

- Health Gorilla: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #583 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/health-gorilla.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/health-gorilla.json
- Terra API: grade B, 65.9/100, rank #327 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/terra.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/terra.json
- Best health record and wellness data APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/health-data/index.md
- All 63 health comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-data/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Health Gorilla (C)

Good for: US providers, labs and digital health companies that need network record retrieval and lab ordering through one FHIR API with a QHIN behind it.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 56

Watch for: No public prices. Fees are set case by case and the sandbox is requested by form

### Terra API (B)

Good for: A fitness, wellness, insurance or research product whose users connect consumer wearables and apps, and an agent that needs to read one user's sleep, activity or body data through MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 58
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 80
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 72
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 5
- Maintenance & community, 75 against 63

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

Watch for: No free tier. Sign-up asks for a plan and billing details, and Quick Start starts at $499 a month with a 30-day money-back guarantee


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Health Gorilla | Terra API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 67 | Terra API +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 89 | Terra API +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 78 | Terra API +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 65 | Health Gorilla +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 20 | Terra API +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 75 | Terra API +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 56 | Health Gorilla +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.3 · C** | **65.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Health Gorilla | Terra API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Health Gorilla, Inc. | Terra Enabling Developers Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://access.tryterra.co/api/v2/mcp/<user_id>` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Health Gorilla's API Terms of Use (updated 22 January 2026), with a signed licence agreement required before production | Proprietary service under Terra's terms of service. The OpenAPI specs repository is Apache 2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-13 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-05-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-08-30 | 2023-04-20 |
| 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 | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | none | 13k npm/wk, 11k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Health Gorilla.** A TEFCA QHIN with a FHIR R4 API, OpenAPI fragments on every reference page, idempotency keys on POST and dated weekly release notes. Access is sales-led, with case-by-case fees, a sandbox by request and no published rate limit numbers, and the API terms allow access to be cut at any time.

**Terra API.** Graded on the Unified API and the Terra AI MCP server. A public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, llms.txt, per-user rate limits with Retry-After, and scoped admin tokens with approvals. Access starts at $499 a month with billing details at sign-up, the data API key has no scopes, and API key requests failed for 2 hours 38 minutes on 7 August 2026.

## Before you call either

### Health Gorilla

1. Send a fresh UUID in `HG-Idempotency-Key` on every POST and reuse it only when retrying the same payload
2. Poll async operations no sooner than the `Retry-After` value and treat 454 as an expired result
3. Follow `link.relation=next` in Bundles rather than building offsets yourself
4. Expect mocked Patient360 data in sandbox unless network connectivity is enabled for the tenant
5. Log `X-HG-Request-Id` from each response for support cases

### Terra API

1. Send dev-id and x-api-key headers on every Unified API and Terra AI call. A missing header returns 401 problem+json
2. Keep each request window to 1,825 days or less and under 6,000 requested days per user an hour. On 429 with rule r2, wait Retry-After seconds
3. Pass either fields or select to Terra AI tools, never both and never neither, or the call fails with a validation error
4. Expect data by webhook after a user connects through the widget session. REST reads are for backfills and on-demand queries
5. Use the Read only access level for the admin MCP server unless a change is needed. The MCP level can read API keys

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Health Gorilla or Terra API?

Terra API scores 65.9 (B) on agent readiness against Health Gorilla's 59.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Health Gorilla leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Health Gorilla and Terra API need an API key?

Health Gorilla uses an OAuth sign-in. Terra API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Health Gorilla and Terra API without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Health Gorilla. Terra API has a hosted endpoint at https://access.tryterra.co/api/v2/mcp/<user_id>.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Health Gorilla or Terra API

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- [Health Gorilla vs Metriport Medical API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-metriport.md)
- [Health Gorilla vs Particle Health](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-particle-health.md)
- [Health Gorilla vs Redox](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-redox.md)
- [Health Gorilla vs Zus Health](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/health-gorilla-vs-zus-health.md)
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- [Medblocks vs Terra API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/medblocks-vs-terra.md)
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- [ROOK vs Terra API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rook-vs-terra.md)
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