# Inbound vs InboxAPI (slim)

> Inbound scores 63.7 (B) to InboxAPI's 54.5 (C) for agent inboxes. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inbound-vs-inboxapi.md (~2,150 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inbound-vs-inboxapi.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/inbound-vs-inboxapi
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Inbound scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against InboxAPI's 54.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. InboxAPI leads on payments & pricing. Both do agent inboxes.

- Inbound: B 63.7, rank #380 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inbound.min.md
- InboxAPI: C 54.5, rank #684 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inboxapi.min.md
- Inbound, good for A team that wants agent addresses on its own domain at a low fixed price, with IMAP and SMTP beside the API and an MCP mode that confines an agent to one mailbox. Ahead on Reliability, 83 against 33; Schema & documentation, 74 against 69; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 61. Also Open source.
- InboxAPI, good for A personal mailbox for one coding agent that needs to exchange mail with its owner and a few contacts at no cost. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 53 against 15. Also No key needed to call it; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Inbound | InboxAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 83 | 33 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 74 | 69 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 78 | 61 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 58 | 57 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 15 | 53 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 63 | 63 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 56 | 53 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Inbound | InboxAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Exon Enterprise LLC | Sitka Capital Pty Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://inbound.new/api/e2` | `https://mcp.inboxapi.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| Licence | MIT for the platform repository. The TypeScript SDK, `inboundctl` and the MCP server are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary hosted service under InboxAPI's terms of service. The CLI on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 50 | 21 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-12-03 | 2026-09-11 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-01-01 | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 359 stars, 1.7k npm/wk | 12 stars, 38 npm/wk |