Nango vs. Zapier: Which is best? [2026]

The shape of AI products has changed in the last couple years. Where a chatbot used to be able to get away with answering questions from its own training data, an AI product in 2026 is expected to read and write across whatever stack the customer has chosen, on demand. That puts a new piece of engineering on every product team's roadmap: an integration layer that handles the auth, the retries, the rate limits, and the slow grind of keeping each upstream API working as it changes.

Two paths have emerged for the SaaS teams building that capability without owning the integration engineering full-time. For teams building AI products, the governance question—who controls app access, how credentials are protected, and whether your agents can be audited—is increasingly the deciding factor. Zapier SDK lets you build safely with AI, giving you programmatic access to Zapier's library of 9,000+ apps, with managed authentication and Zapier's full ecosystem behind it. Nango is a source-available integration platform with 800+ APIs and the option to self-host on your own infrastructure.

This guide compares the two on integration breadth, developer experience, security model, deployment options, and pricing. By the end, you'll have a clear sense of which one fits your team's constraints.

If you're newer to the category, Zapier's MCP, SDK, and CLI explainer covers the broader Zapier developer surface and how the SDK fits next to MCP.

Table of contents:

• Zapier SDK vs. Nango at a glance

• Zapier SDK extends the full ecosystem; Nango is a standalone integration layer

• Zapier SDK covers 9,000+ apps; Nango supports 800+ APIs

• Zapier SDK uses TypeScript types; Nango uses AI-generated integrations

• Zapier holds tokens in its cloud; Nango keeps credentials in yours

• Zapier runs the infrastructure for you; Nango lets you run it yourself

• Zapier SDK runs free during open beta

• Zapier vs. Nango: Which is best?

• FAQs

Zapier SDK vs. Nango at a glance

Zapier SDK extends the full ecosystem; Nango is a standalone integration layer

Zapier SDK is part of Zapier's broader platform. When you reach for the SDK, you get more than a connection to apps. The same actions you call from TypeScript run against Zapier's Workflows, Tables, Forms, and MCP infrastructure. An action you call from your code today can flow into an automated workflow tomorrow, get exposed to an external AI agent via MCP next week, and show up in a customer-facing form a month later, all using the same authentication, retry logic, and audit trails. (Note that Zapier SDK is in open beta and isn't SOC 2-certified like the main platform yet.)

Nango, on the other hand, is purpose-built as an integration platform. Its surface area is the integrations themselves: connectors, sync pipelines, authentication flows, webhook handling, and credential storage. That focus is part of the appeal for teams that don't want a broader platform's product surface, but it's usually a constraint. If your team eventually needs workflow orchestration, agent-facing tool access, or a database alongside your integrations, Nango doesn't ship those.

For teams making a 12-to-24-month engineering bet on where to invest, the platform scope question usually decides itself. If you expect to build only integrations, Nango's narrower surface is fine, but if you expect to layer agentic workflows or AI-facing tool calls on top of the integration layer, Zapier SDK puts all of those in one place.

Of course, you're on the Zapier blog right now, so here's a look at how a real user is putting the Zapier SDK to use, and why he thinks you should give it a try.

Zapier SDK covers 9,000+ apps; Nango supports 800+ APIs

The starkest gap between the two platforms is the catalog. Zapier SDK gives you programmatic access to Zapier's full library of 9,000+ apps. Nango is limited to 800+ APIs.

For most AI-product use cases, breadth is the unlock. The agent you ship today might need to write to Salesforce, but the customer who signs up next month is on HubSpot, and the integration you mapped to Slack might need to also work with Microsoft Teams. The wider the supported catalog, the less product time goes into customer conversations about apps the platform doesn't yet cover.

Nango's narrower catalog matters less if your product only needs to integrate with a small set of well-known APIs, like a payments product that only needs Stripe and Plaid, or a recruiting product that only needs Greenhouse and Lever. Nango's 800+ comfortably covers those cases. The breadth gap will definitely bite when you're building horizontally across whatever stack the customer happens to use.

Zapier SDK uses TypeScript types; Nango uses AI-generated integrations

Zapier SDK ships as a TypeScript package with generated types per action. The types catch wrong field names and bad payload shapes at compile time, before the agent ever runs the call. For each action in the catalog, the SDK exposes a typed signature, so an autocomplete prompt in your editor shows you the exact parameters that action expects. When the upstream API changes, Zapier regenerates the types and you find out at build time.

The SDK also exposes a raw .fetch() escape hatch for cases where an action doesn't exist or you need to send a request the action doesn't shape. Authenticated through Zapier's infrastructure, it lets you hit roughly 3,000 APIs directly when the pre-built action set doesn't cover the request.

Nango takes a different approach. The standout feature is AI-generated integrations: tell Nango what you want to integrate with in natural language, and it generates the integration code for you. For off-catalog APIs that nobody has wrapped yet, this can save time. For on-catalog APIs that Zapier already covers with tested actions and generated types, the AI-generated approach is doing work that's already been done.

In practice, the developer experience tradeoff comes down to where you're spending engineering time. If you're integrating with apps Zapier already supports, Zapier SDK's pre-built actions with type safety are the faster path. If you need an obscure or vendor-specific API that nobody has wrapped yet, Nango's AI-generation may close the gap faster than building from scratch.

Zapier holds tokens in its cloud; Nango keeps credentials in yours

Both platforms handle the standard integration auth model: OAuth flows for the customer to connect their account, automatic token refresh, multi-tenant credential isolation so one customer's tokens never leak into another's session, and rate-limit handling on the upstream APIs.

The difference is where the credentials sit.

With Zapier SDK, customers connect their accounts through Zapier's authentication UI, and tokens are stored on Zapier's managed infrastructure. Zapier handles token refresh, retries, and the long tail of API quirks across the catalog. Your code never holds an OAuth token directly. That removes a class of credential-management bugs and keeps the security surface tightly scoped.

With Nango, you can keep credentials in Nango's managed cloud or self-host the platform and keep all credential storage inside your own infrastructure. For B2B SaaS companies selling into regulated customers (healthcare, financial services, and defense, for example) where procurement requires that no customer credentials leave the company's VPC, Nango's self-hosted path is a clean fit.

Zapier SDK currently doesn't offer self-hosting. If your customer base requires it, that's a hard constraint that pushes the choice toward Nango regardless of catalog size.

Zapier runs the infrastructure for you; Nango lets you run it yourself

Zapier SDK is a managed service. Zapier runs the integration infrastructure, and you ship a TypeScript dependency. The tradeoff is the standard one for any managed service: less operational responsibility and less control over where the code runs.

Nango is source-available under the Elastic License, with a managed cloud product and a self-hosted deployment path. The Elastic License lets you read the source code, deploy it on your own infrastructure, and modify it for your own use. Nango calls itself open-source, but it's not OSI-approved, and it restricts offering Nango itself as a hosted or managed integration service to third parties. For the typical product-team use case (embedded integrations inside your own SaaS), the license is permissive enough to work.

If your stack already requires self-hosted everything (data residency requirements, regulated industry constraints, internal infrastructure standards), Nango's self-hosted option works well. If you'd rather offload integration infrastructure entirely and treat it as a vendor dependency, Zapier SDK removes the question.

Zapier SDK runs free during open beta; Nango is free at small scale and tiers from $50/month

Zapier SDK is currently in open beta with free access.

Nango has four tiers:

• Free: $0/month, 10 connections, 100k proxy requests, 10 hours of function compute

• Starter: from $50/month, 20 connections, 200k proxy requests, 20 hours

• Growth: from $500/month, 100 connections, 1M proxy requests, 100 hours

• Enterprise: custom pricing, with HIPAA BAA and dedicated support as add-ons

Overage pricing is per-connection, per-request, and per-compute-second, so heavy usage on a lower tier can pull the bill closer to the next tier up.

Zapier SDK's post-beta pricing isn't published yet, so direct cost comparison isn't possible until that lands. For now, Zapier SDK is the cheaper option, and Nango's tiered pricing gives more predictability for teams that need to model integration costs over a multi-year window.

Zapier vs. Nango: Which is best?

Choose Nango if:

• You have a hard self-hosting requirement (regulated customers, data residency, internal infrastructure policy)

• Source-available is a procurement requirement and the Elastic License works for your use case

• Your integration list is short enough that 800+ APIs covers it

• You want AI-generated integrations for off-catalog APIs that nobody has wrapped yet

Choose Zapier SDK if:

• You want managed infrastructure that allows you to build safely with AI

• You need 9,000+ apps of horizontal coverage

• You want one platform that extends across SDK, CLI, MCP, workflows, agents, databases, tables, and forms from the same code surface

• You're building AI agents that need to read and write across whatever tool the customer happens to use

For most AI-native product teams, the breadth and type-safety combination tips toward Zapier SDK. For teams with procurement constraints that rule out managed services, Nango's self-hosted path is the right call. 

If you're already running Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor and want to give those agents action access without rebuilding the integration layer, Zapier MCP is the companion product, sharing the same 9,000+ app catalog and the same managed authentication.

Frequently asked questions

Is Zapier SDK production-ready while in beta?

The SDK is in open beta with free access, but it's already used by teams shipping AI products in production. The beta designation primarily means the surface area is still expanding, with new actions, new authentication patterns, and generated type improvements landing regularly. The underlying integration infrastructure has been Zapier's core for 13+ years. Check docs.zapier.com/sdk for current capabilities before committing.

Can I self-host Zapier SDK?

No. The SDK ships as a TypeScript dependency that calls Zapier's managed infrastructure. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, Nango is the alternative.

How does Nango's AI-generated integration feature actually work?

You describe the integration you want in natural language (which endpoint, which auth method, which data shape), and Nango generates connector code for that integration. The generated code runs on Nango's infrastructure or your self-hosted instance. Generated integrations work well for simple REST APIs with standard auth, less well for APIs with complex state, paginated responses, or non-standard auth flows. Treat AI-generated integrations as a starting point for off-catalog APIs, not a replacement for tested connectors.

What's the difference between Zapier SDK and Zapier MCP?

The main difference is the access point: SDK for your code editor and MCP for your chat app. Zapier SDK is a TypeScript package for calling Zapier's catalog from code with type safety. Zapier MCP is a Model Context Protocol server that exposes the same catalog to any MCP-compatible AI tool (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) without code. SDK is for code-driven integration work; MCP is for letting an external AI agent take actions through Zapier with one connection. The two share the same authentication, app catalog, and audit infrastructure.

Zapier also ships a CLI (npx zapier) for terminal-based installs, with the same apps and same governance, for shell/script environments. See Zapier MCP, SDK, and CLI explained for the full comparison.

Can I use Zapier SDK and Nango together?

Yes, though it's uncommon. Teams that use both usually run Nango for a small set of off-catalog APIs that Zapier doesn't support, and Zapier SDK for everything else. Maintaining two integration platforms in parallel adds operational overhead, so most teams pick one as the primary and use the other only for edge cases.

Related reading:

• Composio vs. Zapier: Which is best?

• Zapier MCP: Perform tens of thousands of actions in your AI tool

• The best AI agents for enterprises

• The best AI agent builder software

• AI security: How to protect your tools and processes

• The best MCP servers