# Onyx vs Secoda

> Onyx scores 65 (B) to Secoda's 44.5 (E) for company knowledge search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/onyx-vs-secoda
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/onyx-vs-secoda.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/onyx-vs-secoda.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/onyx-vs-secoda.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

Onyx scores 65 (B) on agent readiness against Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do company knowledge search.

- Onyx: grade B, 65/100, rank #332 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/onyx.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/onyx.json
- Secoda: grade E, 44.5/100, rank #875 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/secoda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/secoda.json
- Best company knowledge search and data catalogues for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/company-knowledge/index.md
- All 63 knowledge comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/company-knowledge/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Onyx (B)

Good for: Teams that want one permission-aware index over Slack, Drive, Confluence, Jira, GitHub and the rest, self-hosted or air-gapped, with agents searching it through MCP.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 69 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 59
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 44
- Security & auth, 71 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 58

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: GHSA-q62f-rv3h-f822 (critical, CVSS 9.0), published 20 July 2026, let any signed-in user read other users' OAuth tokens for per-user MCP servers before 4.0.0

### Secoda (E)

Good for: A data team already on Secoda that wants an agent to read and edit catalogue metadata, lineage, documents and glossary terms, or to search the catalogue and run SQL through the local MCP server.

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Onyx loses 4 points for them

Watch for: No price is published. The three plans (Core, Premium, Enterprise) link to a sales form, and no trial or sign-up button was found on the site


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Onyx | Secoda | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 69 | 40 | Onyx +29 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 59 | Onyx +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 44 | Onyx +33 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 54 | Onyx +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 0 | Onyx +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 60 | Onyx +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 58 | Onyx +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65 · B** | **44.5 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Onyx | Secoda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | DanswerAI, Inc. (Onyx, formerly Danswer) | Secoda, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://cloud.onyx.app/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (Community Edition, including the MCP server, the API server, the CLI and the connectors). Code under the `ee` directories is under the Onyx Enterprise License, which needs a subscription for production use | Proprietary service under the Secoda Master Subscription Agreement. The local MCP server in secoda/secoda-mcp is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 32k stars | 1 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Onyx.** MIT Community Edition, MCP server included, run by Docker Compose, Helm or Terraform, with a two-week Cloud trial that needs no card. GHSA-q62f-rv3h-f822 (critical, CVSS 9.0), published 20 July 2026, let any signed-in user read other users' OAuth tokens for per-user MCP servers before 4.0.0.

**Secoda.** The REST API reference embeds OpenAPI 3.0 definitions on every page, with `llms.txt` and Markdown copies, and the subscription agreement carries a 99.9 per cent uptime commitment. No price, trial or sign-up is published, no status page was found, and the public changelog stops at 28 October 2025 although self-hosted releases continue.

## Before you call either

### Onyx

1. Get the instance URL from the operator. Cloud is https://cloud.onyx.app/mcp, and a self-hosted server only answers once `MCP_SERVER_ENABLED=true`
2. Use a token limited to `read:search`. It covers every MCP tool and nothing else
3. Pass `time_cutoff` as a full ISO 8601 timestamp. A value that doesn't parse is dropped and the search runs unfiltered
4. Check each result for an `error` field. Failures come back with an empty `results` list, not as tool errors
5. Set `skip_query_expansion` to true for exact phrases. It skips an LLM call on every search

### Secoda

1. Pick the base URL by workspace region. `app.secoda.co` uses `api.secoda.co`, `eu.secoda.co` uses `eapi.secoda.co` and `apac.secoda.co` uses `aapi.secoda.co`
2. Keep writes under 30 PUT, PATCH or POST calls a minute on entity endpoints, and back off on a 429
3. List with `/api/v1/resource/catalog` and a URL-encoded JSON `filter`. The per-type list endpoints for tables are marked deprecated, and results stop at 10,000 resources
4. Send at most 100 entities to `/api/v1/resource/all/bulk_update/` in one request
5. Add a trailing slash when an endpoint does not behave as expected, as the docs advise
6. Treat an API key as the creating user. `run_sql` in the MCP server works only when an admin has enabled Run SQL and the user has query access to the integration

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Onyx or Secoda?

Onyx scores 65 (B) on agent readiness against Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Can an agent call Onyx and Secoda without installing anything?

Onyx has a hosted endpoint at https://cloud.onyx.app/mcp. Secoda runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

### Are Onyx and Secoda open source?

Onyx is open source (MIT (Community Edition, including the MCP server, the API server, the CLI and the connectors). Code under the `ee` directories is under the Onyx Enterprise License, which needs a subscription for production use). No open-source release is listed for Secoda.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Onyx or Secoda

- [Alation vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-onyx.md)
- [Atlan vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-onyx.md)
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- [Collibra vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-onyx.md)
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- [Dust vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dust-vs-secoda.md)
- [Glean vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-onyx.md)
- [Glean vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda.md)
- [Guru vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-onyx.md)
- [Guru vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guru-vs-secoda.md)
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- [Atlan vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-secoda.md)
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