Use the MCP server when it exists and exposes what you need: it is faster to wire, and any client can use it. Use the REST API when you need something the server does not expose, when you want tight control over rate limits and error handling, or when there is no server at all, which is the case for 117 of 293 entries here.
| MCP server | REST API plus your own wrapper | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first call | Minutes, if a server exists | Hours to days |
| Who decides the surface | The vendor | You |
| Reuse across clients | Any MCP client | Whatever you wrote it for |
| Rate limit and retry control | Whatever the server does | Yours |
| Breaks when | The vendor changes the server | The vendor changes the API |
| Available for | 165 of 293 entries here | Most of the rest, if they document one |
Start with the server if there is one. The whole point of a protocol is that you stop writing the same integration twice, and 144 vendors here have already done the work for you. Move to the API when you hit a specific wall, and you will know exactly which wall it was.
The access gate. 45 entries need a contract before you get any credential at all, and at that point the protocol question is academic. Check the gate before you design either integration.
Every number on this page is generated from directory.json at build time and carries the date it was baked: 2026-08-25. Nothing is typed by hand, nothing is rounded, and nothing is estimated. The underlying data is published in full. Where the honest answer is a zero, the zero is printed.