# HiBob vs Zoho People

> HiBob scores 57 (C) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do hr employees. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-zoho-people
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-zoho-people.md (~2,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-zoho-people.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-zoho-people.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

HiBob scores 57 (C) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do hr employees.

- HiBob: grade C, 57/100, rank #484 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hibob.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hibob.json
- Zoho People: grade C, 55/100, rank #523 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zoho-people.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zoho-people.json

## Which one, for what

### HiBob (C)

Good for: An agent working inside a company that already runs Bob and needs field-level control over employee data, time off requests, documents and tasks.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 43
- Security & auth, 68 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 59 against 48

Watch for: No public price, free tier or trial. The sandbox is a purchased module

### Zoho People (C)

Good for: An agent working inside a company that already runs Zoho People on a paid plan, for directory reads, leave requests, attendance and timesheet entries at modest volume.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 67
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 0

Watch for: No OpenAPI spec, official SDK or dated API changelog found. The product What's New page has no API entries for 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | HiBob | Zoho People | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 77 | Zoho People +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 43 | HiBob +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 47 | 48 | Zoho People +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 60 | HiBob +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 30 | Zoho People +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 48 | HiBob +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 73 | Zoho People +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57 · C** | **55 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | HiBob | Zoho People |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Hi Bob Ltd. | Zoho |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.hibob.com/v1` | `https://people.zoho.com/api` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under HiBob's customer subscription terms and API Terms of Use | Proprietary service under the Zoho Terms of Service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-08-01 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2022-03-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-12-22 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |

## Verdicts

**HiBob.** Service users start with no permissions and gain view or edit rights per field, and the docs are served as Markdown with an OpenAPI definition on each endpoint page. There is no public price, trial or free sandbox, so an agent needs a paying customer's admin to issue credentials. No idempotency keys or official SDKs were found.

**Zoho People.** The REST API covers employee forms, leave, attendance, timesheets, files and learning, with per-endpoint rate limits and Markdown docs listed in an llms.txt. No OpenAPI spec, official SDK or dated API changelog was found, the Free plan has no API access, and several scopes come only as ALL.

## Before you call either

### HiBob

1. Send `Authorization: Basic base64(SERVICE-USER-ID:TOKEN)` to https://api.hibob.com/v1. Ask the Bob admin to put the service user in a permission group first, because it starts with none
2. Request only the fields needed in `fields` on POST /people/search (maximum 400). The call returns all matching employees at once, so batch by `root.id` in large companies
3. Compare returned fields with requested ones. Missing permission or a wrong field ID yields 200 with the field omitted
4. Stop on 401 or 403. More than 50 in 10 seconds blocks the IP for 5 minutes
5. Back off on 429 using Retry-After. Writes such as update, create and terminate employee allow 10 calls a minute, and no idempotency key exists, so check state before retrying a write

### Zoho People

1. Use the accounts host and API host of the organisation's data centre. Tokens issued in one region fail in another
2. Stay under each page's threshold, often 30 calls a minute. Exceeding it locks that endpoint for five minutes
3. Page form records with `sIndex` and `limit`, at most 200 a call, and use `modifiedtime` to fetch only changes
4. Look up form and field label names with `/api/forms` before writing. `inputData` takes label names, and lookup fields take record IDs
5. Send the refresh token and client secret in the POST body, not the query string, and store the refresh token, which never expires

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, HiBob or Zoho People?

HiBob scores 57 (C) on agent readiness against Zoho People's 55 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Zoho People leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Do HiBob and Zoho People need an API key?

HiBob takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Zoho People uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call HiBob and Zoho People without installing anything?

Yes. HiBob has a hosted endpoint at https://api.hibob.com/v1 and Zoho People at https://people.zoho.com/api.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with HiBob or Zoho People

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- [BambooHR vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-zoho-people.md)
- [Deel vs HiBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deel-vs-hibob.md)
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- [Factorial vs HiBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-hibob.md)
- [Factorial vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/factorial-vs-zoho-people.md)
- [HiBob vs Humaans](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hibob-vs-humaans.md)
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- [Rippling vs Zoho People](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rippling-vs-zoho-people.md)