# Skyfire API + MCP vs Tempo

> Tempo has a score of 76.6 (BB) against Skyfire API + MCP's 40.6 (E). Both do payments stablecoin. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 60 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/skyfire-vs-tempo
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/skyfire-vs-tempo.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: 2026-10-04

Tempo has a score of 76.6 (BB) against Skyfire API + MCP's 40.6 (E). Both do payments stablecoin. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 60 points.

- Skyfire API + MCP: grade E, 40.6/100, rank #422 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/skyfire.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/skyfire.json
- Tempo: grade BB, 76.6/100, rank #27 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tempo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tempo.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Skyfire API + MCP for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Tempo for reliability (+52), schema & documentation (+29), agent ergonomics (+17), security & auth (+29), payments & pricing (+60), maintenance & community (+57), transparency & trust (+7).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Skyfire API + MCP | Tempo | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 19 | 71 | Tempo +52 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 88 | Tempo +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 78 | Tempo +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 41 | 70 | Tempo +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 80 | Tempo +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 31 | 88 | Tempo +57 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 63 | Tempo +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **40.6 · E** | **76.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Skyfire API + MCP | Tempo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Skyfire | Tempo |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.skyfire.xyz` | `https://api.tempo.xyz/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 4 |
| 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-04 | 2026-09-24 |
| Popularity | 16 npm/wk | 1k stars, 209k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3.1/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Skyfire API + MCP.** Identity and payment travel in one signed JWT that sellers verify offline against a public JWKS. No x402 or MPP; both buyer and seller must be on Skyfire.

**Tempo.** api.tempo.xyz accepts MPP on its anonymous endpoints, so an agent can pay per request without an account. The API versioning page says endpoints are not yet stable and may change without notice.

## Before you call either

### Skyfire API + MCP

1. Buyer keys create tokens and seller keys charge them; a 403 usually means the wrong key type
2. Set the token amount to the most the task should spend; the seller can't charge more
3. Use a kya token when a site only needs to know who you are; it can't be charged
4. Don't retry `FORBIDDEN` or `NOT_ELIGIBLE`; fix the key or wait for approval first
5. Rehearse against mcp-sandbox.skyfire.xyz before using mcp.skyfire.xyz

### Tempo

1. Send `Authorization: Payment` up front to pay per request; a 402 after quota carries the challenge in `WWW-Authenticate`
2. Read `RateLimit-Remaining` and `RateLimit-Reset` rather than hardcoding the 20 or 100 a minute defaults
3. Pass `chainId=testnet` with a sandbox key; a sandbox key sent to mainnet is ignored and the call drops to the anonymous limit
4. Use `tempo request --dry-run` before paying an MPP endpoint to see the cost
5. Branch on `error.code`, never on `error.message`

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