Smithery vs Zapier MCP (agent actions)

Smithery

Service tokens can be limited by namespace, resource, operation and connection metadata, with a lifetime of at most 24 hours. No terms of service, rate limits or SLA were found, the pricing page could not be read, and the newest client release is from 20 July 2026.

Zapier MCP (agent actions)

16 meta-tools in agentic mode, or managed mode with only the actions you pick. Connection tokens are long-lived and the docs allow them in the URL query string.

Smithery

1. Keep the API key on the backend and hand an agent a service token limited to connections with read and execute and a metadata match
2. Create connections with PUT /connect/{namespace}/{connectionId}, which is an upsert, and check status.state before calling a tool
3. On auth_required or input_required, send the person to setupUrl, then retry with the same connectionId
4. Tool names on the namespace MCP endpoint are prefixed with the connection ID, such as user-123-github.search_repositories
5. Do not rely on smithery skill commands. Version 1.1.1 of the CLI removed them

Zapier MCP (agent actions)

1. Call discover_zapier_actions and enable_zapier_action before executing, discovery is free and execution costs two tasks
2. Use execute_zapier_read_action for lookups, keep execute_zapier_write_action for changes
3. Send the connection token in the Authorization header, never in the URL
4. Count batch writes per item before starting, five rows is ten tasks