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Arcade.dev gives developers a hosted OAuth broker and a typed tool-calling SDK. Helix gives the end user the result: a calibrated agent identity with a real mailbox, an approval policy, and an audit log that any MCP client can drive. The two solve adjacent problems at different layers of the stack.
Arcade.dev is a developer toolkit for giving AI agents authenticated access to user-owned APIs — a hosted OAuth broker plus a tool-calling SDK. Arcade.dev site
| Feature | Helix | Arcade.dev |
|---|---|---|
| Who it ships to | End users + developers | Developers (SDK + dashboard) |
| Core abstraction | Agent identity (mailbox + policy + audit) | Authenticated tool calls |
| Email / calendar / contacts | Wired to Gmail + Microsoft 365 via Nylas v3 | Provided as individual tool packs |
| Approval policy | Per-identity rules + approval queue UI | Build your own |
| Audit log | Per-identity, exportable, surfaced in UI | OpenTelemetry traces you wire up |
| Free tier | Free, no credit card | Free dev tier, usage-based after |
Arcade.dev sits one layer below Helix in the stack. It is excellent at the developer problem — give an AI agent an authenticated call to a SaaS API without reinventing OAuth — and ships a catalog of tool packs (Gmail, Slack, Notion, Google Drive, GitHub, and so on).
Helix is the consumer-grade product on top of that primitive. Each agent has a sponsor, a real mailbox, an approval policy in plain English, and an audit log that the end user can read. Multi-tenant OAuth, token refresh, and scope grants are problems Helix already solved — sponsored by the Nylas v3 verified application — so the developer never sees them.
In practice, the two are complementary. A team building a custom agent platform may use Arcade for breadth across tool packs while pointing Helix at the email + calendar + contacts surface so they inherit the approval queue and audit log for free.
For the email, calendar, and contacts use case — yes. Helix bundles the OAuth broker, the tool catalog, the approval queue, and the audit log. For breadth across non-Helix tool packs (Slack, Notion, Drive), Arcade complements Helix.
Each Helix identity has exactly one sponsor — a human with a verified dashboard account. Tokens, scopes, and approval rules are bound to that identity, not to the MCP client. Per-identity auth is the default, not an opt-in.
Yes. Helix supports BYO OAuth applications for Gmail and Microsoft 365 — useful if you have a finalized Google verification or an internal-only deployment. Most users stay on the shared verified application to skip the verification queue.
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Try the workflow this comparison points at: Helix for developers — MCP quickstart. Free, no credit card.
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