Nylas logo vs MailKite logo
Alternative to Nylas

An agent address on a domain you control — no OAuth app, no CASA review.

Nylas federates a human's existing Gmail, Outlook, or IMAP mailbox over an OAuth grant — the right tool when the agent must act inside a real person's account. For an autonomous agent that just needs its own inbox, MailKite gives it a scoped address on a domain you own and pushes the parsed message as JSON — no OAuth app, no CASA review, no notify-then-fetch.

A fair take on Nylas

Nylas is a genuinely capable bidirectional email, calendar, and contacts API, and it does something MailKite deliberately does not: it operates a real person's existing mailbox. If the agent has to read the mail already sitting in someone's Gmail or Outlook, reconcile it against their calendar, and reply as them, Nylas is built precisely for that — and its newer Agent Accounts product (in beta) provisions a Nylas-hosted mailbox for an agent too.

How it works

Nylas vs MailKite, in one diagram

Nylas Gmail/M365existing mailbox OAuth grantgrant_id notify hookmessage IDs GET + modelyour loop send as useras the human Production needs your own OAuth app + a CASA review · the hook carries IDs, you fetch the body · replies go from the human's account MailKite email inagent's address MX edgeparse + auth signed hookverifyWebhook your agentyour model mk.send()reply out Blue = operated by MailKite. The agent gets its own address, the webhook is signed and already parsed, and a route with action:'agent' can run the loop for you.
Why teams switch

What MailKite does differently

An address on a domain you control

The agent gets agent@yourco.dev on your own domain, SPF/DKIM aligned — not a grant onto a human's existing account, and not a Nylas-hosted mailbox. Your brand, your deliverability, your data.

No OAuth app, no CASA review

Production Gmail access with restricted scopes needs your own verified Google Cloud app plus an annual CASA security assessment that can take weeks. MailKite has no OAuth app and no review — you verify a domain via DNS (MX to receive, SPF+DKIM to send).

Parsed JSON pushed, not notify-then-fetch

Nylas' webhook carries message IDs, so you call the Messages API for the body — and re-query when it's truncated over 1 MB. MailKite pushes the full decoded message in one signed webhook, with an auth block, threading, and signed attachment URLs already there.

A real free tier and one API key

Nylas' free tier is 5 connected accounts for sandbox and testing; production is per connected account. MailKite's free tier is 3,000 messages/mo of real inbound + outbound, on unlimited domains, behind a single API key — no per-mailbox OAuth or token refresh.

Side by side

MailKite vs Nylas

MailKite Nylas
The address Agent's own address on your domain Federates a human's existing mailbox (Agent Accounts beta for agent-owned)
Getting to production DNS-verify — no review Your OAuth app + Google verification + annual CASA
Inbound delivery Full parsed message in one signed webhook Webhook notifies with IDs; you GET the body (truncated over 1 MB)
Sender trust signal auth block (SPF/DKIM/DMARC/spam) in payload Read headers off the fetched message yourself
Credential upkeep One API key — no per-mailbox OAuth OAuth grants Nylas refreshes; provider send caps
Calendar + contacts in same API Email only Yes — email, calendar, contacts
Operate a real person's inbox No — its own address only Yes — its core strength
Free tier 3,000 messages/mo (in + out) 5 connected accounts, sandbox/testing only

Competitor capabilities change — we re-audit these tables regularly. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.

Show the payload

What actually hits your webhook

Nylas notifies with IDs so you fetch the body and send as a human's account; MailKite pushes the parsed message to an address the agent owns.

Nylas Email API (notify-then-fetch, sends as the connected human)
http
import Nylas from "nylas";
const nylas = new Nylas({ apiKey: process.env.NYLAS_API_KEY });

// 1) One-time per user: exchange the hosted-auth code for a grant you store.
const { grantId } = await nylas.auth.exchangeCodeForToken({
clientId: process.env.NYLAS_CLIENT_ID,
code, // from your /callback after the OAuth redirect
redirectUri: process.env.REDIRECT_URI,
});

// 2) The webhook is a NOTIFICATION with IDs, not the message body.
app.post("/nylas/webhook", async (req, res) => {
res.sendStatus(200);
const { type, data } = req.body;
if (type !== "message.created") return; // also handle message.updated
const msg = await nylas.messages.find({ // GET /v3/grants/{grant}/messages/{id}
identifier: data.grant_id,
messageId: data.object.id,
});
await runAgent({ task: msg.data.body }); // untrusted input
});
// Production first needs: your OAuth app + Google verification + annual CASA.
MailKite
json
POST /your-webhook   Content-Type: application/json
x-mailkite-signature: t=…,v1=… (HMAC-SHA256 — verify locally)

{
"id": "msg_2Hk9…",
"type": "email.received",
"from": { "address": "ada@example.com" },
"to": [{ "address": "support@myapp.ai" }],
"subject": "Re: invoice #1042",
"text": "Looks good — approved!",
"html": "<p>Looks good — approved!</p>",
"threadId": "<a1b2c3@mail.example.com>",
"auth": { "spf": "pass", "dkim": "pass", "dmarc": "pass", "spam": "ham" },
"attachments": [
{ "filename": "po.pdf", "contentType": "application/pdf",
"size": 18213, "url": "https://api.mailkite.dev/att/2Hk9…/0?sig=…" }
]
}
The price advantage

Unlimited domains. One quota. Free to start.

MailKite

  • Free: 3,000 emails/mo (in + out)
  • Unlimited domains on every plan
  • Pro $20/mo → 50,000, graceful overage

Nylas

  • Free tier: 5 connected accounts, sandbox/testing only
  • Full Platform ~$15/mo including 5 accounts
  • ~$2.00 per additional connected account/mo (confirm on Nylas' page)

Nylas prices per connected account because it federates one mailbox per grant. MailKite has no per-address or per-domain fee — one combined inbound + outbound quota across unlimited domains.

See full MailKite pricing →

Switch in an afternoon

Moving from Nylas

  1. 1

    Add a domain (or managed subdomain)

    Point MX + SPF/DKIM at MailKite, or start instantly on a managed subdomain. The agent's address lives on your domain — no provider mailbox to provision, no OAuth app, no CASA review.

  2. 2

    Swap notify-then-fetch for one webhook

    Delete the grant exchange and the Messages-API GET. Set one webhook URL; read event.from.address, event.subject, event.text, event.attachments[] straight from the pushed JSON — no truncation re-query.

  3. 3

    Verify the signature and reply

    Check x-mailkite-signature with the SDK's verifyWebhook helper, then reply through the same send API from the agent's own address — or hand the loop to a route with action: 'agent'.

Questions

Can Nylas give an AI agent its own email address?

Newly, yes — Nylas has an Agent Accounts product (in beta) that provisions a Nylas-hosted mailbox for an agent. The classic Email API instead federates a human's existing Gmail, Outlook, or IMAP account over OAuth. MailKite gives the agent its own address on a domain you own and pushes inbound as parsed JSON on the free tier.

Do I need Google's OAuth review to use Nylas in production?

For restricted Gmail scopes (gmail.readonly, gmail.modify), yes: your own Google Cloud app must pass OAuth verification plus an annual CASA security assessment, which can take weeks. Nylas sells a pre-verified Shared GCP App add-on to skip it on paid plans. MailKite has no OAuth app and no review — you verify a domain via DNS.

Which should I pick for an email agent?

If the agent must operate a real person's existing mailbox, calendar, and contacts, pick Nylas — it's built for exactly that. If the agent should just have its own autonomous address with parsed inbound pushed to it and no OAuth to manage, pick MailKite. They solve adjacent problems, not the same one.

Go deeper

The Nylas alternative for AI agents →

The long-form take on our blog — receipts, runnable code, and where we won't overclaim.

Try MailKite free — keep Nylas running until you're ready.

Point a domain, drop in a webhook URL, receive your first email. Unlimited domains, no credit card.