# OpenTable APIs vs TheFork B2B API

> TheFork B2B scores 43.6 (E) to OpenTable's 38.6 (E) for booking availability. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-thefork
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-thefork.md (~2,150 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-thefork.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-thefork.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: 2026-10-14

TheFork B2B API scores 43.6 (E) on agent readiness against OpenTable APIs's 38.6 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenTable APIs leads on agent ergonomics. Both do booking availability.

- OpenTable APIs: grade E, 38.6/100, rank #994 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/opentable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opentable.json
- TheFork B2B API: grade E, 43.6/100, rank #951 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/thefork.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/thefork.json
- Best restaurant reservation and local appointment APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/local-bookings/index.md
- All 36 bookings comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/local-bookings/index.md

## Which one, for what

### OpenTable APIs (E)

Good for: Approved affiliates, restaurant groups and voice AI vendors that need to book into OpenTable restaurants.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 69 against 56

Watch for: Access needs an application, review by the partnerships team and an agreement, with no self-serve credentials

### TheFork B2B API (E)

Good for: CRM, PMS and AI phone-agent vendors and restaurant groups that run on TheFork Manager, mainly in Europe.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 61
- Security & auth, 42 against 33
- Maintenance & community, 15 against 5
- Transparency & trust, 47 against 42

Watch for: Venue-side only. Credentials cover the restaurants that granted access, and no endpoint lists restaurants


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenTable APIs | TheFork B2B API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 35 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 87 | TheFork B2B API +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 56 | OpenTable APIs +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 42 | TheFork B2B API +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 5 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 5 | 15 | TheFork B2B API +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 42 | 47 | TheFork B2B API +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **38.6 · E** | **43.6 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenTable APIs | TheFork B2B API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | OpenTable | TheFork (La Fourchette SAS) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://platform.opentable.com` | `https://api.thefork.io/manager` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |
| Pricing | Your plan | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under each partner's agreement with OpenTable and the Platform Policy published in the API documentation | Proprietary service under TheFork Partners API Terms of Use (La Fourchette SAS) and any core agreement with TheFork |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |

## Verdicts

**OpenTable APIs.** The public documentation covers diner-side and venue-side booking in detail, with slot locks, policy endpoints, error tables and an X-Request-Id header for safe retries. Access needs partner approval and a contract, rate limits and prices are not published, and the status page and main website could not be read.

**TheFork B2B API.** A venue-side API with a generated OpenAPI 3.1 schema, an llms.txt written for agents and nine OAuth scopes down to read-only availability. It acts for restaurants and their vendors, not diners, needs partner approval, cannot take card guarantees, and has no public status page, changelog or published prices.

## Before you call either

### OpenTable APIs

1. Lock the slot before calling Make Reservation, since the lock and its reservation_token expire within 5 minutes
2. Send a unique X-Request-Id on every POST, PUT and PATCH so a retried booking is not duplicated
3. Fetch booking and cancellation policies before booking and show any deposit, hold or service fee to the diner
4. Use the Consumer API for diner bookings and the In-House Booking API only for a restaurant's own voice or phone channel
5. Ask the OpenTable representative for the rate limit of each endpoint before going live

### TheFork B2B API

1. Read hasPaymentGuaranteeRequirement in the timeslots response before booking, since the API cannot take a card
2. Check the status field after creating a reservation and treat REQUESTED as unconfirmed
3. Send the timeslot datetime unchanged as mealDate, because times are the restaurant's local time
4. Check for an existing reservation before retrying a failed POST, as no idempotency key exists and 409 signals DOUBLE_BOOKING
5. Cache the access token for its 8,600 seconds and do not request a new one while it is valid

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, OpenTable APIs or TheFork B2B API?

TheFork B2B API scores 43.6 (E) on agent readiness against OpenTable APIs's 38.6 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. OpenTable APIs leads on agent ergonomics.

### Do OpenTable APIs and TheFork B2B API need an API key?

Both use an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call OpenTable APIs and TheFork B2B API without installing anything?

Yes. OpenTable APIs has a hosted endpoint at https://platform.opentable.com and TheFork B2B API at https://api.thefork.io/manager.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with OpenTable APIs or TheFork B2B API

- [Chope vs OpenTable APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-opentable.md)
- [Chope vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-thefork.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs OpenTable APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-opentable.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-thefork.md)
- [OpenTable APIs vs Tock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-tock.md)
- [Resy vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/resy-vs-thefork.md)
- [TheFork B2B API vs Tock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/thefork-vs-tock.md)
- [OpenTable APIs vs Resy](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-resy.md)
- [OpenTable APIs vs SevenRooms](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-sevenrooms.md)
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- [OpenTable APIs vs TableCheck API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-tablecheck.md)
- [Square Appointments (Bookings API) vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/square-appointments-vs-thefork.md)
- [TableCheck API vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tablecheck-vs-thefork.md)
- [SevenRooms vs TheFork B2B API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sevenrooms-vs-thefork.md)