# One vs Smithery

> One scores 66.6 (B) to Smithery's 50.7 (D) for app automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-smithery
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-smithery.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-smithery.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-smithery.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: 2026-10-09

One scores 66.6 (B) on agent readiness against Smithery's 50.7 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do app automation.

- One: grade B, 66.6/100, rank #282 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/one.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/one.json
- Smithery: grade D, 50.7/100, rank #766 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/smithery.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/smithery.json
- Best agent tool access platforms: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/aggregator/index.md
- All 28 tool access comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aggregator/index.md

## Which one, for what

### One (B)

Good for: A person or small team that wants one MCP entry with a small tool footprint across many SaaS accounts, with access set per connection and a free plan.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 82 against 60
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 65
- Security & auth, 69 against 50
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 43
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 46

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: The remote server's tools changed from four to three by 30 September 2026, and the site's changelog, last dated 13 July 2026, has no entry for it

### Smithery (D)

Good for: A developer who wants many MCP servers behind one credential and one endpoint, with per-user connections and short-lived scoped tokens.

Watch for: No terms of service are linked from the site, the docs or the footer. The privacy notice of 20 June 2025 is the only legal document found


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | One | Smithery | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 82 | 60 | One +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 76 | One +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 65 | One +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 69 | 50 | One +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 10 | One +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 43 | One +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 46 | One +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **66.6 · B** | **50.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | One | Smithery |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | One Systems, Inc. | Smithery (Arcade.dev) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.withone.ai/mcp` | `https://api.smithery.ai` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under One's Terms of Service. The local MCP server package `@withone/mcp` is MIT. The CLI package `@withone/cli` has no licence field or licence file. The knowledge base is under the One Knowledge Commons Licence v1.0, which is not an OSI licence | Proprietary hosted service, with no terms of service found. The CLI (`smithery`) is AGPL-3.0, the TypeScript client (`@smithery/api`) is Apache-2.0 and the credential layer agent.pw is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 3 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.withone/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-07-20 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-06 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-22 | 2025-06-20 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 11 stars, 681 npm/wk | 840 stars, 2.7k npm/wk |

## Verdicts

**One.** One's remote MCP server has three tools, OAuth 2.1 sign-in with PKCE and a consent screen that sets read only, read and write, full or per-action access for each connection. A person must sign in through a browser, the SOC 2 audit is unfinished, and the site's changelog stops at 13 July 2026.

**Smithery.** Service tokens can be limited by namespace, resource, operation and connection metadata, with a lifetime of at most 24 hours. No terms of service, rate limits or SLA were found, the pricing page could not be read, and the newest client release is from 20 July 2026.

## Before you call either

### One

1. Call `list_one_integrations` first and read each connection's `access` field. When the policy is `actions`, run those ids directly without calling `find_one_actions`
2. Send every operation a task needs in one `find_one_actions` call, up to 10 `requests`, each a platform and a short intent with no IDs, names or message text
3. When a document comes back as a digest, call `find_one_actions` again with `load` and a `section` name. Don't guess parameters the digest left out
4. After a timeout on `execute_one_action`, check whether the write took effect before sending it again. No idempotency key is documented
5. A 403 for a call outside the grant won't succeed on retry. Ask the user to widen the grant in the dashboard or reconnect

### Smithery

1. Keep the API key on the backend and hand an agent a service token limited to `connections` with `read` and `execute` and a `metadata` match
2. Create connections with `PUT /connect/{namespace}/{connectionId}`, which is an upsert, and check `status.state` before calling a tool
3. On `auth_required` or `input_required`, send the person to `setupUrl`, then retry with the same `connectionId`
4. Tool names on the namespace MCP endpoint are prefixed with the connection ID, such as `user-123-github.search_repositories`
5. Do not rely on `smithery skill` commands. Version 1.1.1 of the CLI removed them

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, One or Smithery?

One scores 66.6 (B) on agent readiness against Smithery's 50.7 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Do One and Smithery need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call One and Smithery without installing anything?

Yes. One has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.withone.ai/mcp and Smithery at https://api.smithery.ai.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with One or Smithery

- [Composio (API + MCP) vs One](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/composio-rube-vs-one.md)
- [Composio (API + MCP) vs Smithery](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/composio-rube-vs-smithery.md)
- [Merge Agent Handler vs One](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/merge-agent-handler-vs-one.md)
- [Merge Agent Handler vs Smithery](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/merge-agent-handler-vs-smithery.md)
- [One vs StackOne](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-stackone.md)
- [One vs Unified.to MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-unified-to-mcp.md)
- [One vs Zapier MCP (agent actions)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/one-vs-zapier-mcp.md)
- [Smithery vs StackOne](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smithery-vs-stackone.md)
- [Smithery vs Unified.to MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smithery-vs-unified-to-mcp.md)
- [Smithery vs Zapier MCP (agent actions)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/smithery-vs-zapier-mcp.md)
- [letme vs One](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/letme-vs-one.md)
- [letme vs Smithery](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/letme-vs-smithery.md)