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SuperTokens vs Unkey

Unkey scores higher on the AgentReady, 56/100 against 54/100. They differ on 9 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

SuperTokens. Open source user authentication platform that helps developers build fast, maintain control, and reduce costs.

Unkey. Unkey is a developer platform for modern APIs that unifies infrastructure, allowing developers to deploy APIs instantly, route traffic through global gateways, and understand usage in one place.

Where SuperTokens is ahead

SuperTokens passes llms-full.txt / full agent docs and mcp discoverable, and Unkey does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: no mandatory sales call and mcp integration available. Unkey misses those.

Where Unkey is ahead

Unkey passes structured api reference and limits / constraints documented, and SuperTokens does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.

It also holds adopt: self-service signup and fast time to first request. SuperTokens misses those.

And on operate, observable execution. SuperTokens misses it.

What neither does

Both fail openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, 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. SuperTokens leads 100 to 80. SuperTokens misses nothing; Unkey misses llms-full.txt / full agent docs, mcp discoverable.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Unkey leads 54 to 31. SuperTokens misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Unkey misses openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented.

Adopt. SuperTokens leads 60 to 55. SuperTokens misses self-service signup, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request; Unkey misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, mcp integration available.

Operate. Unkey leads 35 to 24. SuperTokens misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified; Unkey misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

SuperTokens starts at $0.02/MAU and has a free tier. Unkey starts at $5/mo and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

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

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