# Pixelixe vs Shotstack

> Shotstack scores 67.3 (B) to Pixelixe's 37.3 (F) for design templates. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixelixe-vs-shotstack
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixelixe-vs-shotstack.md (~4,950 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Shotstack scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Pixelixe's 37.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do design templates.

- Pixelixe: grade F, 37.3/100, rank #1355 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pixelixe.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pixelixe.json
- Shotstack: grade B, 67.3/100, rank #333 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/shotstack.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/shotstack.json
- Best programmatic image and design asset APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/design-assets/index.md
- All 153 assets comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/design-assets/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Pixelixe (F)

Good for: Template fills and white-label editing for marketing and SaaS teams, with a JSON-to-graphic route for agents.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Shotstack loses 3 points for them

Watch for: Every error is HTTP 400 with a free-text message, including wrong keys and exhausted credits

### Shotstack (B)

Good for: Teams that render video, images or audio from JSON or templates at volume and want an agent to draft edits that a person reviews in Studio.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 95 against 15
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 49
- Security & auth, 48 against 38
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 19
- Transparency & trust, 73 against 41

Watch for: API keys have no scopes. One production key and one sandbox key reach the Edit, Serve and Ingest APIs, and key rotation was not found in the docs


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Shotstack +80

- Pixelixe (15): Hosted lines. No status page found on the site or in the docs (0). No readable incident history (5). No rate limit is published; the terms only forbid circumventing them (0). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance. Every error, a wrong key and exhausted credits included, is a 400 with a message (0). No SLA found; the terms supply the service as is (0). API v2 is current and not labelled beta (10). 0 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 15.
- Shotstack (95): Hosted lines. Public status page at status.shotstack.io with monitors, the Edit API in production among them (20). Its feed and incident pages hold no incident in the 90 days from 4 August 2026. The newest incident, number 8 (range parameters in render payloads causing failures, 21 July 2026), left the window on 20 October, /incidents/9 answers 404, and the window holds only two completed maintenance windows (11 August, rendering stayed available; 4 and 5 September, billing, with the API fully available). A readable page that posts incidents, none in the window, is a clean record (30, was 20). Rate limits per API key in a fixed 60-second window, 300 for Edit, 600 for Serve and 300 for Ingest in production (15). A 429 returns `rate_limit_error` with advice to wait for the window and retry with exponential backoff, and `POST /generate` takes an `Idempotency-Key`, but `POST /render` has none and no `Retry-After` is documented for rate limits (10). Schedule 2 of the terms is an SLA of 99.9 per cent with a 10 per cent credit, free plans excluded (10). The Edit API is `v1` and neither the MCP server nor the CLI carries a beta label (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 95.

### Maintenance & community: Shotstack +54

- Pixelixe (19): No dated release or API change was found. The newest dated items are the MCP registry entry of 26 March 2026 and the privacy policy of 7 April 2026, more than 180 days before this check (0). No three dated changes since 8 August (0). No changelog. Support by email at inquiries@pixelixe.com, not tested (4 of 15). com.pixelixe/pixelixe-mcp is in the official MCP registry under a domain-verified namespace; there are no official SDKs (15). No public package or repository (0). 0 + 0 + 4 + 15 + 0 = 19.
- Shotstack (73): API definition 1.23.3 (@shotstack/schemas) tagged on 27 October 2026, six days before the check, after 1.23.0 on 15 October added a source file on generation assets (30). 21 definition tags and 13 CLI tags (0.8.x to 0.15.2, the last on 22 October) since 4 August 2026, and the skill repository synced from CLI 0.16.0 to 0.17.0 between 25 and 30 October (20). Dated changelog for the definition in its repository, in-app support on every plan and a GitHub issue template for the CLI. Issue threads were not read (8). `@shotstack/cli` and `@shotstack/schemas` are current, while npm `shotstack-sdk` 0.2.9 dates from July 2024 per the 8 October check; the PyPI release date came from a path pypi.org's robots.txt disallows and is struck, and pypi.org didn't resolve on 2 November. The MCP registry entry was not checked (7). The definition repository runs build, smoke and example tests on pull requests. Since 25 October the CLI repository holds only the agent skill and says the CLI's source isn't published there, so its release tests can no longer be read (8). 30 + 20 + 8 + 7 + 8 = 73.

### Transparency & trust: Shotstack +32

- Pixelixe (41): Closed service under terms of 19 March 2026 that choose French law but name no company (12 of 30). The privacy policy of 7 April 2026 keeps account data while the account is active and 'as long as reasonably necessary' after, with no periods, and says nothing about AI processing or training (10 of 30). V1 is marked deprecated in the docs with no dates or notice period (5 of 20). Processors are described only by category, with Google Analytics named, and data processed in France, the EEA and other vendor countries (5 of 20). 12 + 10 + 5 + 5 = 32.
- Shotstack (73): Closed service under published terms, with the schemas and SDKs under MIT. The CLI was Apache-2.0 in its last public source (0.15.2, 22 October 2026); since 25 October its source isn't published and the repository keeps only the agent skill (15). A DPA and sub-processor list updated 6 October 2026, and terms that say customer data is not used to train AI models. The privacy policy is dated 21 December 2021 and says ingested media is deleted after rendering, while the Ingest guide says sources are stored until deleted, and the DPA gives 24 hours for outputs while the hosting guide calls CDN hosting permanent by default (18). The terms promise reasonable notice before a feature is retired and 30 days before material changes to the terms, and deprecated asset types keep working, but no dated deprecation policy was found (8). Five sub-processors named with purposes and locations, AWS in Sydney and the United States, with seven days' notice of additions (20).

### Schema & documentation: Shotstack +22

- Pixelixe (66): OpenAPI 3.1 (version 2.0.0) at pixelixe.com/pixelixe-openapi.json, but it covers four endpoints, authentication, document search, graphic automation and photo effects, and leaves out the JSON-to-graphic and image processing APIs (18 of 25). llms.txt exists but routes readers to marketing pages; the MCP reference is written for LLMs (7 of 10). The MCP reference says what each of the seven tools maps to, that `pixelixe_generate_graphic_variant` 'is not a free-form layout API', lists common mistakes and how to present outputs (17 of 20). The MCP layer documents canonical field names and refuses legacy aliases; the REST modifications are open structures keyed by element name (10 of 15). Request examples throughout, but errors are one table of message strings all returning 400 (8 of 15). /v2 paths and a deprecated V1, with no changelog (6 of 15). 18 + 7 + 17 + 10 + 8 + 6 = 66.
- Shotstack (88): Public OpenAPI 3.0.1 definition of the Edit API with 14 operations and 122 schemas. The MCP tool schemas need a signed-in account and were not read (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every guide page (10). The conventions guide and MCP page say when to use `studio` or `render_video` and name the five commonest mistakes (17). 84 enums and required fields across the schemas, with per-model generation `options` published as JSON Schema by `GET /models` (13). 367 examples in the definition. Error responses are documented for the generation endpoints, while render and template operations document only the success response (10). `v1` and `stage` in the path and a dated changelog for the definition, less 2 because release 1.22.0 removed a response field in a minor version (13).

### Payments & pricing: Shotstack +15

- Pixelixe (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices with monthly document counts are public, with no per-image price (10). 10-day trial with no card (20). A person signs up and copies the key, or approves OAuth in a browser (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.
- Shotstack (45): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Public per-minute prices, 20 cents on pay as you go down to 5 cents on Volume, with AI generation priced per model through a quote endpoint and four examples on the pricing page (20). 10 credits for 30 days with no card, and a free watermarked sandbox (20). Checking an edit and opening a Studio preview need no key, but any render needs a key from a browser signup (5).

### Agent ergonomics: Shotstack +14

- Pixelixe (49): Seven compact MCP tools (25). Document and design-set search filters, with no pagination documented (10 of 20). All errors are 400 with free-text messages, so an agent can't branch on a code (6 of 20). No idempotency keys, and annotations couldn't be read on the closed server. The MCP tools only read and create, with nothing that deletes (5 of 20). Few required fields, but no official SDK (3 of 15). 25 + 10 + 6 + 5 + 3 = 49.
- Shotstack (63): 15 MCP tools by the vendor's list, with the authoring guide loaded on demand through `get_shotstack_guide` and skill references read only when relevant (18). No pagination, limit or filter on the template or source lists in the definition. The CLI prints JSON with `--output json` (6). Errors carry `status`, `title` and `detail`, confirmed on a 401, generation errors carry a `code`, the CLI validates offline and exits 0, 1 or 2 for success, permanent and retryable failures (17). `Idempotency-Key` and a result cache on generation and a free quote, but no idempotency on renders, and MCP annotations were not readable (12). Smart clip lengths and a default `v1` environment keep requests short. Five official SDK repositories exist, but the npm and PyPI packages date from July 2024 (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Pixelixe | Shotstack | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 15 | 95 | Shotstack +80 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 88 | Shotstack +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 49 | 63 | Shotstack +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 48 | Shotstack +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 45 | Shotstack +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 19 | 73 | Shotstack +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 41 | 73 | Shotstack +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **37.3 · F** | **67.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Pixelixe | Shotstack |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Pixelixe | ShotStack Pty Ltd |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://studio.pixelixe.com/api` | `https://api.shotstack.io/edit/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Closed service under the Pixelixe terms of service (last modified 19 March 2026) | Proprietary service under Shotstack's Terms and Conditions. The schemas package and SDKs are MIT and the Studio SDK is under PolyForm Shield 1.0.0. The CLI was Apache-2.0 up to its last public source (0.15.2, 22 October 2026); since 25 October 2026 its source isn't published and the shotstack-cli repository holds only the agent skill |
| Tools exposed | 7 | 15 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.pixelixe/pixelixe-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-03-26 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-19 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-07 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 0 stars, 1.2k npm/wk, 326 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Pixelixe

No score change since it was listed.

### Shotstack

- +2.0 on 2 November 2026: time

## Verdicts

**Pixelixe.** Pixelixe's seven MCP tools and their LLM-oriented reference make template fills and JSON-to-graphic creation simple to call, with an OpenAPI file for the core endpoints. Every error comes back as a 400 with a message, there are no published rate limits, status page or changelog, and API access starts at $59 a month.

**Shotstack.** A public OpenAPI definition, Markdown docs, a hosted MCP server with OAuth and a free watermarked sandbox let an agent draft, check and render video with little setup. API keys have no scopes, webhooks are unsigned, no security contact or certification of Shotstack's own was found, and the npm Node SDK dates from July 2024.

## Before you call either

### Pixelixe

1. Call `pixelixe_search_documents` first to find the `document_uid` of the template to reuse
2. Use `pixelixe_generate_graphic_variant` to fill an existing template; it can't change the layout
3. Read the error `message` text, since every failure is a 400
4. Stop and tell the user on 'Not enough Credits'; retrying won't help
5. For a batch, use `pixelixe_create_multiple_images` and summarise counts rather than inlining every image

### Shotstack

1. Fetch `https://shotstack.io/docs/api/api.edit.json` and the conventions guide before writing an edit. Track order is reversed, so the first track renders on top
2. Render in `stage` first. It is free and watermarked, but AI generation there is charged from the production credit balance
3. Call `POST /generate/quote` before `POST /generate`, and send an `Idempotency-Key` header on generation. `POST /render` has no idempotency key, so do not resubmit blindly
4. Do not store the `url` from the render status response. It expires after 24 hours. Use the CDN address built from `owner` and the render id
5. On a 429, wait for the 60-second window to reset and retry with backoff. Limits are per API key, 300 a minute on the Edit API in production

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Pixelixe or Shotstack?

Shotstack scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Pixelixe's 37.3 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Pixelixe and Shotstack need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Pixelixe and Shotstack without installing anything?

Yes. Pixelixe has a hosted endpoint at https://studio.pixelixe.com/api and Shotstack at https://api.shotstack.io/edit/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Pixelixe or Shotstack

- [Adobe Photoshop API vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-photoshop-api-vs-shotstack.md)
- [APITemplate.io vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apitemplate-io-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [APITemplate.io vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apitemplate-io-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Bannerbear API + MCP vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bannerbear-vs-pixelixe.md)
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- [Contentdrips API and MCP vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/contentdrips-vs-pixelixe.md)
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- [Creatomate vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/creatomate-vs-shotstack.md)
- [DynaPictures vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dynapictures-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [DynaPictures vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dynapictures-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Layerre vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/layerre-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [Layerre vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/layerre-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Photoroom API vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/photoroom-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Pixelixe vs Placid API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixelixe-vs-placid.md)
- [Pixelixe vs PostNitro](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixelixe-vs-postnitro.md)
- [Pixelixe vs Robolly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pixelixe-vs-robolly.md)
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- [Placid API + MCP vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/placid-vs-shotstack.md)
- [PostNitro vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/postnitro-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Robolly vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/robolly-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Shotstack vs Templated API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shotstack-vs-templated.md)
- [Abyssale vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/abyssale-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [Abyssale vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/abyssale-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Osmo CLI vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/osmo-cli-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [Osmo CLI vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/osmo-cli-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Pictify vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pictify-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [Pictify vs Shotstack](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pictify-vs-shotstack.md)
- [Adobe Photoshop API vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-photoshop-api-vs-pixelixe.md)
- [Photoroom API vs Pixelixe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/photoroom-vs-pixelixe.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp