# Swell vs WooCommerce API + MCP

> WooCommerce API + MCP has a score of 73 (BB) against Swell's 55.1 (C). Both do commerce products. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 35 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

WooCommerce API + MCP has a score of 73 (BB) against Swell's 55.1 (C). Both do commerce products. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 35 points.

- Swell: grade C, 55.1/100, rank #317 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/swell.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/swell.json
- WooCommerce API + MCP: grade BB, 73/100, rank #64 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/woocommerce.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/woocommerce.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Swell for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick WooCommerce API + MCP for reliability (+17), schema & documentation (+9), agent ergonomics (+18), security & auth (+20), payments & pricing (+35), transparency & trust (+25).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Swell | WooCommerce API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 80 | WooCommerce API + MCP +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 77 | WooCommerce API + MCP +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 83 | WooCommerce API + MCP +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 55 | WooCommerce API + MCP +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | WooCommerce API + MCP +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 82 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 76 | WooCommerce API + MCP +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.1 · C** | **73 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Swell | WooCommerce API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Swell | WooCommerce (Automattic) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.swell.store` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | GPL-3.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| 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 | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 4.5k npm/wk | 11k stars, 64k npm/wk, 25k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Swell.** 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.

**WooCommerce API + MCP.** Free GPL software with no platform fee or revenue share. Uptime, speed and security depend on each store's host and plugins. No vendor status page.

## Before you call either

### Swell

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

### WooCommerce API + MCP

1. Create a REST key with read permission only for reporting tasks, and send it in the Authorization header, never the URL
2. Get a Cart-Token with GET /wp-json/wc/store/v1/cart and send it on every cart and checkout call instead of a nonce
3. Add `_fields=id,name,price` to REST calls to cut response size
4. Page with per_page up to 100 and stop at X-WP-TotalPages
5. Product delete only trashes unless you pass force true, so check the trash before assuming it's gone

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