# Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets

> Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)'s 69.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do wallet onchain. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.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

Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)'s 69.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do wallet onchain.

- Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine): grade B, 69.9/100, rank #158 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/privy.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/privy.json
- Turnkey Agentic Wallets: grade BB, 76/100, rank #38 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/turnkey-agentic-wallets.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/turnkey-agentic-wallets.json

## Which one, for what

### Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) (B)

Good for: Builders who need fine-grained, enclave-enforced spending rules on programmatic wallets, or who want an agent to sign for a person's wallet with a revocable scoped signer.

Watch for: Database problems took API endpoints down for 71 minutes on 18 September 2026, one of 13 incidents since July

### Turnkey Agentic Wallets (BB)

Good for: A company that wants agents to sign from its own wallets under rules checked in an enclave, with a person co-approving large transactions, across EVM, Solana, Bitcoin, Tron and other chains.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 48

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Policy conditions cap value per transaction. No daily, rolling or cumulative spending limit was found in the policy language


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) | Turnkey Agentic Wallets | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 75 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +27 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 79 | Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 77 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 85 | 85 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 55 | 58 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +3 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 83 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 72 | Turnkey Agentic Wallets +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.9 · B** | **76 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) | Turnkey Agentic Wallets |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Privy (Stripe) | Turnkey Global, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.privy.io/v1` | `https://api.turnkey.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | payer tooling only | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Turnkey's terms of service. The SDKs, the CLI and the agent skills on GitHub are Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-12-16 | 2026-08-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-06-29 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 296k npm/wk, 13k PyPI/wk | 304k npm/wk, 12k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine).** Default-deny policies with DENY precedence on recipients, values, contracts, calldata, typed data and time windows, enforced in AWS Nitro Enclaves. Database problems took API endpoints down for 71 minutes on 18 September 2026, one of 13 incidents since July.

**Turnkey Agentic Wallets.** An agent gets a non-root user that can sign nothing until a policy allows it, with DENY rules taking precedence and human co-approval available. Policies cap value per transaction only, with no daily or rolling limit found, and each organisation gets five policies below Enterprise. Signing endpoints returned elevated errors for five hours on 27 August 2026.

## Before you call either

### Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)

1. Add a rule for every RPC method the agent needs; a wallet with a policy denies anything unlisted
2. Pair a rolling cap with a lower per-transaction cap, since aggregations update only after signing
3. Send an idempotency key on `/rpc`, `/transfer` and `/wallets` calls; reusing one with a changed body returns 400
4. Set `maxValue` on the x402 or MPP client for every request
5. Retry a `transaction_broadcast_failure`; don't retry a `policy_violation`

### Turnkey Agentic Wallets

1. Use a non-root user's key. Refuse root credentials for unattended work, because root bypasses every policy
2. Scope every signing ALLOW policy by `wallet.id` or `wallet_account.address`, or it covers every key the user can reach
3. Check the activity status on each response. `ACTIVITY_STATUS_CONSENSUS_NEEDED` means a person must approve within 24 hours
4. Retry with the identical body to stay idempotent. Changing `timestampMs` creates a new activity
5. Back off with jitter on 429 and poll `get_activity` sparingly, since polling counts against the same 1 to 3 requests a second

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) or Turnkey Agentic Wallets?

Turnkey Agentic Wallets scores 76 (BB) on agent readiness against Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)'s 69.9 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) and Turnkey Agentic Wallets need an API key?

Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Turnkey Agentic Wallets needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) and Turnkey Agentic Wallets without installing anything?

Yes. Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) has a hosted endpoint at https://api.privy.io/v1 and Turnkey Agentic Wallets at https://api.turnkey.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) or Turnkey Agentic Wallets

- [Circle Wallets (Agent Wallets, Programmable Wallets) vs Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-wallets-vs-privy.md)
- [Circle Wallets (Agent Wallets, Programmable Wallets) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circle-wallets-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Coinbase Developer Platform (Agentic Wallet, AgentKit, CDP MCP) vs Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-cdp-agentkit-vs-privy.md)
- [Coinbase Developer Platform (Agentic Wallet, AgentKit, CDP MCP) vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coinbase-cdp-agentkit-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)
- [Privy Wallets (server wallets, agent wallets, policy engine) vs Sponge Wallet](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/privy-vs-sponge-wallet.md)
- [Sponge Wallet vs Turnkey Agentic Wallets](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sponge-wallet-vs-turnkey-agentic-wallets.md)