# Kite vs Zeplin (slim)

> Zeplin and Kite score within a point of each other for design files, 47.6 and 47 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-zeplin.md (~4,600 tokens) · this version ~2,830 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-zeplin.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kite-new-vs-zeplin
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-02
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Zeplin and Kite score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 47.6 (D) and 47 (D). Kite leads on maintenance & community. Both do design files.

- Kite: D 47, rank #1039 of 1268 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kite-new.min.md
- Zeplin: D 47.6, rank #1028 of 1268 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zeplin.min.md
- Kite, good for Agents that make banners, social posts, landing pages and screens for a team that will edit and comment on them in a shared file, drawing in HTML and CSS against the team's design system and picking up changes from @-mention comments, without a desktop app or browser tab kept open. Ahead on Maintenance & community, 78 against 33. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Free to start without a card.
- Zeplin, good for Teams that already publish designs to Zeplin and want an agent to read screens, components, tokens and notes, or turn a screen into code through the MCP server. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 70 against 62; Agent ergonomics, 55 against 44; Transparency & trust, 60 against 44. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | Kite | Zeplin |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 33 | 36 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 62 | 70 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 44 | 55 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 50 | 47 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 78 | 33 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 44 | 60 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Kite | Zeplin |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Kite | Zeplin, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://kite.new/api/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Kite's terms of use (updated 8 September 2026). No source is published; the only public code is an MIT plugin manifest repository (itsloukman/kite-agent-plugins) that points agents at the hosted server | Proprietary hosted service under Zeplin's Terms of Service and Developer Terms. The JavaScript SDK and the MCP server on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 59 | 4 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `new.kite/kite` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-11-01 | 2026-08-03 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-01-12 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-14 | 2025-08-29 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | none | 10 stars, 8.9k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Kite +45: Kite 78 (Closed service with a dated changelog. The latest entry is 1 November 2026 (30). 15 dated entries between 6 October and 1 November 2026, including Pro on 18 October, Windows, shaders and website design systems on 23 October and the agent page, version, comment and export tools on 25 October (20). Support is hello@kite.new, a Support link in the docs, 'your feedback first in line' on Pro and dedicated support on Team; no community channel, forum or issue tracker, and the plugin repository has no issues (8 of 15). new.kite/kite 1.0.0 is in the official MCP registry under a DNS-verified namespace since 21 October 2026 (15). No packages to judge; the MIT plugin repository was pushed once on 7 October 2026 and the desktop apps update themselves (5 of 10). 30+20+8+15+5 = 78.); Zeplin 33 (Recency is scored on the last dated change to the API's own surface. The API changelog stops at 11 May 2021, the operation page read was updated on 23 June 2026, and SDK 1.40.0 of 8 July 2026 is the last release that changed an API model, 93 days before the check (10 of 30). SDK 1.41.0 of 3 August 2026 upgraded dependencies only and is the one release in 90 days (0 of 20). The docs name a Discord server and a developer email. The one issue on the MCP server repository, opened on 28 April 2026, was fixed on 8 July 2026 (7 of 15). The JavaScript SDK is current. The MCP server was not found in the official MCP registry (10 of 15). Both repositories keep a lockfile and took dependency upgrades on 31 July and 5 October 2026, with a publish workflow and no test workflow (6 of 10).)
- Transparency & trust, Zeplin +16: Kite 44 (Closed service. The terms of use (8 September 2026) run to about 200 words on content, prohibited use, links, availability and changes and name no legal entity, address or governing law, so the contracting party is unknown (8 of 30). The privacy policy (14 October 2026) names eight services, says files are not read, trained on or sold, discloses masked session replays and error replays, gives the agent token's 7-day life renewable to 90 days (matching auth.md and the integration page), the 30-day purge of deleted pages and the one-month deletion of a closed account's files, and the Figma token's handling; no DPA and no retention period for logs beyond the providers' own (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices; the terms promise email or in-app notice of changes that matter and the changelog dates additions, not removals (4 of 20). Telemetry (PostHog, Sentry) is disclosed with what it excludes and no opt-out beyond product-news emails; service locations are given only for PostHog and Sentry (US) (10 of 20). 8+20+4+10 = 42.); Zeplin 60 (Closed service under published Terms of Service of 12 January 2026 and Developer Terms of 12 March 2025. The SDK and MCP server are MIT (17 of 30). The Privacy Policy of 29 August 2025 gives a general retention rule, a help article of 24 July 2026 sets two-year deletion periods for inactive data, and the AI terms rule out training on customer data. The security whitepaper of 7 July 2023 says no design data goes to third-party vendors, while the AI terms let third-party model providers process it as sub-processors, and the sub-processor list of 23 February 2024 names no model provider (16 of 30). The versioning page promises a new version for breaking changes, and the Developer Terms promise commercially reasonable efforts at advance notice with no period (8 of 20). The sub-processor list gives each entity's purpose and country, and the whitepaper states AWS hosting in the United States. The list is dated 23 February 2024 (15 of 20).)
- Agent ergonomics, Zeplin +11: Kite 44 (MCP reading. 59 tools (61 through the Mac app) with no toolsets, read-only subset or dynamic loading; guide_read moves the long instructions out of tool descriptions into on-demand reads, but tools/list still carries 59 definitions (5 of 25). Output is sized by asking for one page in file_outline, one node in layer_source and layer_render, layer_search by name, words or type, file_search over content, comment_list with unread_only and include_resolved, request_list per file; file_list is newest-first with no documented paging (14 of 20). OAuth errors are documented with recovery steps, web_capture says when a page was cut short and an unknown shader base is refused, but a picture Kite cannot fetch is left out silently and no tool error shape is documented (9 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint documented and no idempotency keys; version_save before a big change and version_restore undoable both ways, file_archive reversible and no permanent delete, layer_draw's replace argument for swapping a node (7 of 20). Few required parameters (file_new takes a title, layer_draw a file and HTML, finish_working a file), defaults in the drawing guide, and an MIT plugin repository for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Grok Bot; no SDK, since the vendor points at the official MCP SDKs (9 of 15). 5+14+9+7+9 = 44.); Zeplin 55 (Scored for the API. Collections take a `limit` up to 100, with no field selection, and screen versions return whole layer trees. The MCP server trims this with `includeVariants` and `targetLayerName` (15 of 25). `limit` and `offset` pagination on collections, a section filter and a sort order on screens (16 of 20). Errors return `message`, `detail` and `code`, and each operation lists its 404 and 422 cases. No list of error codes was found (12 of 20). No idempotency keys or retry guidance for the create operations, and the four MCP tools set no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint (4 of 20). List calls need only a path ID. One official SDK, for JavaScript and TypeScript (8 of 15).)
- Schema & documentation, Zeplin +8: Kite 62 (MCP reading, since the MCP server is the only surface an outside agent reaches. No tool input schemas were read. The server card at /.well-known/mcp/server-card.json declares tools without listing them, and llms-full.txt describes every tool in prose with argument names in the skill, so typed inputs are the vendor's to show and were not seen (10 of 25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt, skill.md, auth.md and pricing.md are served as text and Markdown (10). Descriptions say what each tool does and when to use it, such as file_search over file_list when the user describes a file, layer_edit rather than redrawing, never base64 in HTML, never a picture of a design, guide_read's six topics, and the view-only rule (16 of 20). Inputs named in the docs are typed in prose, with enumerations for audience (link, restricted), export formats (svg, react, tailwind, html), sticky colours, shader bases and guide topics, and bounds for videos (100 MB) and fonts (4 MB), but the main write tool takes one HTML string and layer_edit a free CSS object (8 of 15). Worked HTML examples in skill.md, a prompt per client page, and auth.md's 401, 400 and 429 responses; no example tool call or response and no MCP error shape (8 of 15). A dated changelog with 15 entries from 6 October to 1 November 2026 that names agent-facing changes (page, version, comment and export tools on 25 October), server version 1.0.0; no versioned tool surface or deprecation policy (10 of 15). 10+10+16+8+8+10 = 62.); Zeplin 70 (Each of the 123 operation pages carries an OpenAPI 3.0.2 definition in its Markdown twin. No single downloadable description file was found linked (20 of 25). `llms.txt` and Markdown twins of every docs page (10). Operation descriptions are one line each, such as List all screens of the project, with nothing on when to use an operation (8 of 20). Parameters carry types, patterns, minimums, maximums, defaults, enums and required fields, as in the two operations read (13 of 15). Example responses and per-operation 404 and 422 answers with example messages, plus SDK code samples (11 of 15). The version is in the path with a written compatibility policy, but the changelog stops at 11 May 2021 while the reference now covers variables, flow boards and annotations (8 of 15). Two of the 123 operation pages were read in full.)