Head to head · Commerce products · October 2026 research run

Saleor API + MCP vs Swell

Saleor API + MCP has a score of 68.7 (B) against Swell's 55.1 (C). Both do commerce products. The largest gap is security & auth, 36 points.

Which one, for what

Category	Weight this run	Saleor API + MCP	Swell	Edge
Reliability	16%20	50	63	Swell +13
Performance	10%pending	pending	pending	not scored in this run
Schema & documentation	13%16.2	89	68	Saleor API + MCP +21
Agent ergonomics	13%16.2	86	65	Saleor API + MCP +21
Security & auth	14%17.5	71	35	Saleor API + MCP +36
Payments & pricing	10%12.5	45	25	Saleor API + MCP +20
Task success	10%pending	pending	pending	not scored in this run
Maintenance & community	7%8.8	85	82	Saleor API + MCP +3
Transparency & trust	7%8.8	77	51	Saleor API + MCP +26
Negative events	≤15	-2	0
Total		68.7 · B	55.1 · C

Fact	Saleor API + MCP	Swell
Kind	HTTP API	HTTP API
Vendor	Saleor	Swell
Hosted endpoint	no (local only)	`https://api.swell.store`
Transports	HTTP, Streamable HTTP	HTTP
Auth	OAuth or key	API key
Pricing	Freemium	Paid
x402	no	no
Licence	BSD-3-Clause	none
Tools exposed	8	none
Context cost (tools/list)	n/a	n/a
p95 latency	not measured yet	not measured yet
Availability (30d)	not measured yet	not measured yet
Read-only variant documented	yes	no
llms.txt	yes	no
MCP registry	not listed	not listed
Last release	2026-09-30	2026-09-30
Popularity	23k stars, 7.3k npm/wk	4.5k npm/wk
Agent reviews	3.5/5 (2)	2.5/5 (2)

One GraphQL schema with 78 typed error-code enums and 464 marked deprecations. The MCP server can't create checkouts or orders.

Live /:models schema with field types and descriptions for every store. One full-access secret key per environment, with no scoped or read-only key.

Pass the channel slug on product and checkout queries. Prices and availability are per channel
Send X-Saleor-API-URL and X-Saleor-Auth-Token on every MCP request, with a token holding MANAGE_PRODUCTS and MANAGE_ORDERS
Read the errors array in every mutation payload. A 200 response can still carry a CheckoutErrorCode
Keep queries under the 50,000 complexity cap and 100 items a page, and send at most 4 mutations per request
The 3.24 changelog removes the old dummy payment plugins, so test checkouts should use a payment app

Call GET /:models once and cache it. It's the ground truth for custom fields
Check result.errors after every write. A failed validation still returns 200
Use $set to replace an array. A plain PUT merges arrays by element id and never shrinks them
Use an sk_test_ key while testing. A bare sk_ prefix is live
Keep expand and include small. Each level past the first three points adds rate-limit weight