# OpenPanel vs Pendo (slim)

> OpenPanel scores 61 (C) to Pendo's 44 (E) for analytics queries. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openpanel-vs-pendo.md (~4,900 tokens) · this version ~2,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openpanel-vs-pendo.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openpanel-vs-pendo
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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OpenPanel scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Pendo's 44 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Pendo leads on security & auth. Both do analytics queries.

- OpenPanel: C 61, rank #631 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openpanel.min.md
- Pendo: E 44, rank #1237 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pendo.min.md
- OpenPanel, good for Small and mid-sized teams wanting EU-hosted or self-hosted product analytics an agent can query. Ahead on Reliability, 70 against 50; Schema & documentation, 75 against 28; Agent ergonomics, 54 against 41; Payments & pricing, 35 against 5; Maintenance & community, 83 against 60; Transparency & trust, 83 against 77. Also Free to start without a card; Open source.
- Pendo, good for Teams already paying for Pendo who want an agent to answer questions on usage, funnels, retention, guides and feedback, or to draft segments and journeys. Ahead on Security & auth, 58 against 41.

| Category | OpenPanel | Pendo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 50 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 75 | 28 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 54 | 41 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 41 | 58 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 35 | 5 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 60 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 83 | 77 |

| Fact (where they differ) | OpenPanel | Pendo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | OpenPanel AB | Pendo.io, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.openpanel.dev/mcp` | `https://app.pendo.io/mcp/v0/shttp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary service under the Pendo Software Services Agreement. The Claude Code plugin repository on GitHub is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 51 | 96 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-21 | 2022-08-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-21 | 2024-11-04 |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 339k npm/wk | 1 stars |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, OpenPanel +47: OpenPanel 75 (A live OpenAPI 3.0.3 document with 93 operations, 67 described, generated by the framework and titled 'Elysia Documentation' version 0.0.0; MCP tools are defined in TypeScript with typed inputs (22 of 25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and Markdown pages (10). Tool descriptions say when to use them, for example list_event_names is to be called first when event names aren't known (14 of 20). 143 enums in the spec and typed MCP inputs (11 of 15). Curl examples in the API docs; error responses aren't documented per endpoint (9 of 15). Tagged releases on GitHub with notes, unversioned API paths and no changelog page (9 of 15). 22+10+14+11+9+9 = 75.); Pendo 28 (No machine-readable contract can be read. The Engage API's Postman collection is fetched by the documentation page's script with only a Run in Postman button, so it isn't a published contract under this run's reading, and the MCP input schemas need a paid subscription (0 of 25). www.pendo.io/llms.txt exists but is marketing copy with a section telling AI assistants when to recommend Pendo, and no Markdown docs were found (3 of 10). The MCP tools reference (updated 3 November 2026) gives each of 96 tools a purpose, example prompts and limits, and some entries say when to use another tool. Per-request API descriptions are no longer counted (12 of 20). No typed input schema or attribute table can be read. The tools reference states required IDs and some valid values in prose only (0 of 15). Example prompts for every tool and help articles for the 400 and timeout errors, with the collection's saved responses and status table no longer counted (5 of 15). The API path is v1 and the MCP path v0, with monthly release notes but no API changelog (8 of 15). 0+3+12+0+5+8 = 28.)
- Payments & pricing, OpenPanel +30: OpenPanel 35 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Public prices by event tier from $2.50 a month, with no overage charges; tiers rather than a per-event rate (15 of 20). 30-day free trial with no card, and free self-hosting (20). Signup is in a browser and client keys are created in the dashboard (0). 0+15+20+0 = 35.); Pendo 5 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Paid plans are priced on request, and the only published plan is Free (0). Pendo Free needs no card but excludes the API and integrations, and the MCP server is for paid customers, so the free plan doesn't reach the graded surface. The 30-day trial goes through sales (5 of 20). An admin must sign in and enable access in a browser (0). Total 5.)
- Maintenance & community, OpenPanel +23: OpenPanel 83 (v3.30.0 was tagged on 6 November 2026 (30). 60 tagged releases between 8 August and 6 November (20). 572 commits since 8 August, a Discord server, a feedback board and email; issue response times weren't read because the GitHub API refused us for its rate limit (15 of 25). The official MCP registry has only a third-party OpenPanel server, not OpenPanel's own; official SDKs are current (10 of 15). Workflows build Docker images, SDKs and self-hosting releases; no test workflow was found in .github/workflows (8 of 10). 30+20+15+10+8 = 83.); Pendo 60 (The AI release notes (updated 3 November 2026) carry October 2026 entries for the MCP server, among them `promoteDiscoveryApp`, labels and assignees on Listen tools, `resolveObjectInstance`, and the rename of `listCountables` to `listPagesFeaturesAndEvents`. Entries are dated by month, counted from their month as settled in this run (30). Several MCP entries in September and October 2026 (20). Dated release notes, a community site and technical support, with no public issue tracker (10 of 25). Not checked in the official MCP registry, and no API client libraries, though the Claude Code plugin repository had its last commit on 30 October 2026 (6 of 15). The plugin repository is active, with 28 commits since 6 August, no tags and no CI workflow (4 of 10). 20+20+10+6+4 = 60.)
- Reliability, OpenPanel +20: OpenPanel 70 (Graded on OpenPanel Cloud with the hosted lines. OpenStatus page at status.openpanel.dev with API and Tracker components (20). In the 90 days from 8 August, one incident, degraded API performance for about two hours on 1 October 2026, caused by Hetzner private-network problems reaching the ClickHouse servers (15 of 30). Limits are documented with numbers for MCP (60 a minute per client) and the Export, Insights and Manage APIs (15). The docs say a 429 is returned and to back off exponentially; no Retry-After or idempotency guidance (10 of 15). No SLA was found (0). Generally available (10). 20+15+15+10+0+10 = 70.); Pendo 50 (Graded as a hosted service on the MCP server and the Engage API. Statuspage site with API and MCP components in each of five regional environments, read from the page on 4 November (20). The incident feed lists six incidents from 6 August to 4 November 2026, each scoped to a subset of users, one region or one function. They are intermittent sign-outs for some US users (2 September), latency in the US region affecting login, guide delivery and event processing (14 September), guide targeting for a subset of US visitors (21 September), mobile pairing (1 October), authentication errors on new MCP connections for some customers from 16:49 on 1 October to 05:19 on 2 October, with existing connections unaffected, and Account and Visitor reports failing to load (4 November). All partial, so minor only (20). No request rate limits found for the API or the MCP server (0). The earlier 429 reading came from the Engage API's Postman collection, which the documentation page loads by script and this run doesn't read, and no 429 or retry guidance was found on the readable pages (0). No SLA found on the public legal pages, and the contract centre wasn't read (0). The MCP server has been generally available since April 2026 (10). 20+20+0+0+0+10 = 50.)
- Security & auth, Pendo +17: OpenPanel 41 (Client credentials with three types (write, read for one project, root for the organisation), created and deleted in the dashboard (25), less 10 because the docs give `?token=` in the MCP URL as an option (15 of 30). Read clients are read-only and limited to one project, and onboarding creates a read-only MCP client. No approval step for root-client writes (14 of 20). Tools return event properties, page titles and profile data sent from tracked sites, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (3 of 15). No audit log was found (0). SECURITY.md with a private advisory route and response times, a valid security.txt, and no bug bounty or certification found (9 of 20). 15+14+3+0+9 = 41.); Pendo 58 (OAuth with PKCE S256, dynamic client registration and client ID metadata documents, scopes limited to mcp:tools and mcp:resources, service accounts limited to chosen applications with rotation and 60-minute tokens, and integration keys that are read-only or read-write with no stated expiry (26 of 30). Read-only tools by default, write tools an admin opt-in after read-only tools, calls inherit the user's permissions, and Command Centre changes need confirmation, though `guideSetState` can publish a guide (16 of 20). Tools return end-user text such as feedback and agent conversations, and the only guidance found warns against using a service account where end users submit queries (3 of 15). No audit log of MCP or API calls found in the reviewed documentation (0 of 15). Yearly SOC 2 Type II, penetration tests twice a year and a security@pendo.io address, per the 7 October check, with no security.txt (404 on 4 November) or bug bounty found (13 of 20). 26+16+3+0+13 = 58.)
- Agent ergonomics, OpenPanel +13: OpenPanel 54 (51 MCP tools, more than 30 (5). We added 3 because a read client doesn't get the 9 dashboard management tools (8 of 25). Insights endpoints take startDate, endDate, range, filters, cursor and limit (18 of 20). Errors aren't documented beyond 401 and 429 (12 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint in the MCP source, no idempotency keys; delete_dashboard refuses a non-empty dashboard without forceDelete (3 of 20). Few required parameters, and SDKs for JavaScript, React, Next.js, Vue, React Native, Swift, Kotlin and Python (13 of 15). 8+18+12+3+13 = 54.); Pendo 41 (96 tools named in the reference earns 5, plus 5 back for the separate read-only and write switches and Command Centre tools being off by default (10 of 25). Documented date range and row limits, saved segments as filters, and offset paging with a `hasMore` flag on usage tools (10 rows by default, up to 200, offset up to 10,000) (14 of 20). Help articles explain the 400 "missing jzb" and timeout errors. The collection's status table is no longer counted (8 of 20). No idempotency keys, and tool annotations couldn't be read without a subscription. Orchestrate journeys are created as drafts (3 of 20). No official API client libraries found. The SDKs Pendo publishes are for data capture (6 of 15). 10+14+8+3+6 = 41.)