Head to head · Shipping tracking · October 2026 research run
Karrio vs Ship24
Ship24 scores 55 (C) on agent readiness against Karrio's 48.7 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Karrio leads on reliability, security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do shipping tracking.
Which one, for what
Karrio D
Good for A team that wants to host its own multi-carrier API with its own carrier contracts and can maintain a Django and PostgreSQL stack.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 76 against 45
- Security & auth, 44 against 37
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
Also in its favour
- Open source
Watch for
No release since 2026.1.32 on 23 June 2026, 107 days before this check, and fix pull requests opened in September 2026 were still open
Ship24 C
Good for An agent that only needs tracking events across many couriers, by webhook or by lookup, from a tracking number alone.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 68
- Agent ergonomics, 68 against 57
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 29
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Karrio loses 7 points for them
Watch for
No status page was found. status.ship24.com doesn't resolve, and neither the site nor the docs link to one
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Karrio | Ship24 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 76 | 45 | Karrio +31 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 68 | 81 | Ship24 +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 57 | 68 | Ship24 +11 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 44 | 37 | Karrio +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 30 | Karrio +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 29 | 80 | Ship24 +51 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 56 | 52 | Karrio +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | 0 | |
| Total | 48.7 · D | 55 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Karrio | Ship24 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Karrio, Inc. | Ship24 Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://api.ship24.com/public/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for shipping tracking | not published | $0.045 per transaction |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | LGPL-3.0 for the server, SDK and modules. Code under ee/ is under the Karrio Enterprise licence and needs a subscription for production use. The MCP package in packages/mcp is Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under Ship24's Terms and Conditions. The Node SDK and the AI plugin on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 12 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | com.ship24/tracking-mcp |
| Last release | 2026-06-23 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-04-08 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-08 | 2026-08-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 799 stars, 338 PyPI/wk | 0 stars, 79 npm/wk |
Verdicts
Karrio
A current OpenAPI 3.0.3 contract with 65 paths, a free LGPL-3.0 server and 30 carrier connectors suit a team that hosts it. The last release was 23 June 2026, the @karrio/mcp package the docs install is absent from npm, and api.karrio.io didn't resolve on 8 October 2026.
Ship24
The REST API and the hosted MCP server share one public OpenAPI 3.1 spec, numbered rate limits with Retry-After, and tracker creation that is idempotent by payload. No status page, SLA or security certification was found, API keys carry no scopes, and the API agreement and data processing agreement named in the terms aren't published.
Before you call either
Karrio
- Run your own instance with Docker Compose and call it at
http://localhost:5002. Don't rely onapi.karrio.io, which didn't resolve on 8 October 2026 - Don't run
npx karrio-mcpornpx -y @karrio/mcp. Neither name is published on npm, so build the server frompackages/mcpin the repository - Change the default
admin@example.comanddemologin before the instance is reachable, and upgrade to 2026.1.32 or later so passwords aren't stored as MD5 - Don't blind-retry
POST /v1/shipmentswith aserviceset orPOST /v1/shipments/{id}/purchase. Fetch the shipment and check its status first, since no idempotency key exists - Use a test-mode API key while building. Send it as the HTTP Basic username or as
Authorization: Token key_...
Ship24
- Send
Authorization: Bearer apik_...tohttps://api.ship24.com/public/v1. The same key works on the MCP server, which lists tools without a key but answers 401 on calls - Store the
trackerIdor set a uniqueclientTrackerId. Tracking numbers aren't unique, and any changed field on a repeatPOST /trackerscreates a second tracker that uses quota - Allow up to 60 seconds for the first
POST /trackers/trackorPOST /tracking/searchcall, since results are fetched from the courier synchronously - Cache
GET /couriers. It is limited to one request a second and returns the whole courier list, and courier auto-detection usually makescourierCodeunnecessary - Check for
quota_limit_reachedandno_active_subscription.POST /tracking/searchneeds a separate per-call plan, and the free plan blocks at 10 shipments a month
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Karrio or Ship24?
Ship24 scores 55 (C) on agent readiness against Karrio's 48.7 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Karrio leads on reliability, security & auth and payments & pricing.
Do Karrio and Ship24 need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Karrio and Ship24 without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Karrio. Ship24 has a hosted endpoint at https://api.ship24.com/public/v1.
Are Karrio and Ship24 open source?
Karrio is open source (LGPL-3.0 for the server, SDK and modules. Code under `ee/` is under the Karrio Enterprise licence and needs a subscription for production use. The MCP package in `packages/mcp` is Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Ship24.
Other comparisons with Karrio or Ship24
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/karrio-vs-ship24.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/karrio.json·/api/v1/tools/ship24.json - From a terminal
anchor compare karrio ship24(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "karrio", "b": "ship24"}at/mcp, no key