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Hanko vs Permit.io

Permit.io scores higher on the AgentReady, 79/100 against 48/100. They differ on 14 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Hanko. Hanko is an open-source authentication and user management platform for modern web and mobile apps.

Permit.io. Permissions for the AI era.

Where Hanko is ahead

Hanko passes self-service signup and fast time to first request, and Permit.io does not. That is adopt, whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop.

Where Permit.io is ahead

Permit.io passes clear product positioning and mcp discoverable, and Hanko does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided and errors and status codes documented. Hanko misses those.

And on adopt, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available and mcp integration available. Hanko misses those.

Finally, on operate, machine-readable errors. Hanko misses it.

What neither does

Both fail authentication documented, limits / constraints documented, no mandatory sales call, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Permit.io leads 100 to 73. Hanko misses clear product positioning, mcp discoverable; Permit.io misses nothing.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Permit.io leads 85 to 23. Hanko misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Permit.io misses authentication documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. Permit.io leads 70 to 50. Hanko misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available; Permit.io misses self-service signup, no mandatory sales call, fast time to first request.

Operate. Permit.io leads 59 to 47. Hanko misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Permit.io misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Hanko starts at $29/month and has a free tier. Permit.io does not publish one and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Permit.io clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Hanko and Permit.io. Alternatives to each: Hanko, Permit.io.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["hanko", "permit"]}