# Nevermined API + MCP vs Tempo

> Tempo has a score of 76.6 (BB) against Nevermined API + MCP's 71.1 (BB). Both do payments stablecoin. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 15 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- 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: 2026-10-05

Tempo has a score of 76.6 (BB) against Nevermined API + MCP's 71.1 (BB). Both do payments stablecoin. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 15 points.

- Nevermined API + MCP: grade BB, 71.1/100, rank #89 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nevermined.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nevermined.json
- Tempo: grade BB, 76.6/100, rank #27 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tempo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tempo.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Nevermined API + MCP for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Tempo for schema & documentation (+8), security & auth (+7), payments & pricing (+15), transparency & trust (+9).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Nevermined API + MCP | Tempo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 72 | 71 | Nevermined API + MCP +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 88 | Tempo +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 78 | Tempo +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 63 | 70 | Tempo +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 65 | 80 | Tempo +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 89 | 88 | Nevermined API + MCP +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 63 | Tempo +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **71.1 · BB** | **76.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Nevermined API + MCP | Tempo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Nevermined | Tempo |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.live.nevermined.app` | `https://api.tempo.xyz/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 12 | 4 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.nevermined-io/catalog` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-24 |
| Popularity | 17 stars, 468 npm/wk, 4.4k PyPI/wk | 1k stars, 209k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.1/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Nevermined API + MCP.** Fees published without a login, 1% on stablecoins, 2% on cards and 2% for the Router. The x402 paywall settles Nevermined plan tokens, so generic x402 clients need its SDK or API to pay.

**Tempo.** api.tempo.xyz accepts MPP on its anonymous endpoints, so an agent can pay per request without an account. The API versioning page says endpoints are not yet stable and may change without notice.

## Before you call either

### Nevermined API + MCP

1. Call `quote_service` before `pay_service`; quotes cost nothing
2. Ask the person to open the `setup_delegation` URL once; you can't mint the first key or budget yourself
3. Branch on the error `code` and retry only when `retryable` is true
4. Create a small, short delegation per task; cards stop at $10.00 across delegations unless the owner raises it
5. Use `sandbox:` keys and mcp.sandbox.nevermined.app until the flow works

### Tempo

1. Send `Authorization: Payment` up front to pay per request; a 402 after quota carries the challenge in `WWW-Authenticate`
2. Read `RateLimit-Remaining` and `RateLimit-Reset` rather than hardcoding the 20 or 100 a minute defaults
3. Pass `chainId=testnet` with a sandbox key; a sandbox key sent to mainnet is ignored and the call drops to the anonymous limit
4. Use `tempo request --dry-run` before paying an MPP endpoint to see the cost
5. Branch on `error.code`, never on `error.message`

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