Pyas vs. Nylas: communications platform vs. calendar API

The core difference

Nylas is a communications platform. One API gives you email, calendar and contacts, and Nylas adds products on top: a Scheduler with booking pages and round robin, a Notetaker that records and transcribes Meet, Teams and Zoom calls, and Agent Accounts, which are mailboxes and calendars hosted by Nylas. Its provider list runs from Google and Microsoft to iCloud, Yahoo, IMAP and Exchange on-premises.

Pyas is a calendar API. It connects Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com and Zoom, and does calendar work on them: events in one shape, meeting links, free time across people, and webhooks when something changes. Pyas Auth, sign-in that Google, Microsoft and Zoom have already verified, is on every plan, the free one included. Pricing is per calendar account.

So the choice comes down to scope. Nylas is built for products that read inboxes as well as calendars. Pyas is built for products where the calendar is the job, and priced for that.

When Nylas is the right choice

• You need email and calendar together. A CRM that logs threads and meetings, a helpdesk, an inbox assistant. Nylas does both under one connection; Pyas does no email.
• You need providers beyond Google and Microsoft. Nylas covers iCloud, Yahoo, IMAP and Exchange on-premises through EWS, though it describes EWS as "limited support for Microsoft Exchange".
• You want scheduling UI ready-made. Nylas Scheduler has scheduling pages, round robin with max-fairness and max-availability modes, and web and React components.
• You need meeting recordings or transcripts. Notetaker records and transcribes Meet, Teams and Zoom calls.
• Your backend is not Node.js. Nylas ships SDKs for Node.js, Python, Ruby and Kotlin/Java.

When Pyas is the right choice

• Calendar is the whole job. Booking flows, CRM meeting sync, an assistant that schedules, a team availability view. You need events, free time, meeting links and change notifications on Google and Outlook.
• You do not want to run Google, Microsoft and Zoom apps. Pyas Auth handles sign-in for all three on every plan, so you skip Google's OAuth review and Zoom's app review. See the next section.
• Account count drives your bill. Calendar-only accounts at 500 cost about $746.50 a month on Nylas Pro monthly and $150 on Pyas. The price table above shows other sizes.
• You want to build before connecting a real calendar. The Pyas sandbox has simulated Google, Outlook and Zoom accounts with sample people and calendars, reached with test keys.
• You build on TypeScript. The Pyas SDK is TypeScript for Node.js today, with Python, PHP, Ruby and Go SDKs planned. Any language can call the REST API meanwhile.

Who handles Google's review

Every calendar connection starts with a user approving an app on Google's or Microsoft's consent screen. The question is whose app.

On Nylas, it is yours by default. Its auth docs say: "If you plan to connect Google or Microsoft accounts, you need a provider auth app." You register a Google Cloud project and a Microsoft Entra app, and users approve those.

Nylas offers a way around this on Google. The Accelerator add-on includes a shared Google app, which Nylas describes as follows: "Gain access to read Gmail inboxes and calendars instantly using our CASA-verified shared GCP application." It costs $2,400 a year, about $200 a month, and is "Optional add-on for Pro Annual plans only, or included automatically in Enterprise contracts". It is "Not available on Free, Essentials, or Pro Monthly". No shared Microsoft app is documented, so Microsoft accounts still go through your own Entra app.

On Pyas, users approve Pyas on Google's, Microsoft's and Zoom's own consent screens. Google, Microsoft and Zoom have already verified it, on every plan. If you want users to see your own name instead, Native Auth lets you use your own Google or Microsoft app, per provider.

Why this matters:

• Google's review. Calendar scopes are sensitive. Until Google verifies your app, it is limited to test users whose access expires after seven days, or to an unverified warning screen with a cap on new users. Google quotes 3 to 10 business days for the review; developers report weeks to months. Details in how long Google's OAuth review takes.
• Microsoft admin consent. Microsoft's default consent policy can require a Microsoft 365 administrator to approve calendar access in a work tenant. That applies on Nylas and on Pyas Auth alike, because it is the tenant's policy, not the app's. See fixing "Need admin approval".

What Nylas does well

One Nylas integration covers Google, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, iCloud mail, calendar and contacts, Yahoo, IMAP, Exchange on-premises and Zoom. If your users are spread across those, that list saves you several integrations.

Availability answers "query for availability amongst a group of participants" in one call, and free/busy works across several emails. Conferencing creates Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom links from one autocreate field. Zoom needs your own Zoom OAuth app, connected as a conferencing connector, and Nylas's Zoom guide says that for users from more than one domain "you must go through the Zoom app review process." See what Zoom's review involves.

Webhooks carry "JSON payloads containing the object that triggered the notification", so a handler often has what it needs without another request.

Beyond calendars, the Scheduler and its components can save weeks of UI work, Notetaker handles recording and transcripts, and Agent Accounts give an AI agent its own mailbox and calendar. Nylas's MCP server is hosted in the US and EU and covers email, calendar, contacts and Notetaker. The connect side is covered too, with a Hosted Auth page where users choose a provider, the @nylas/connect library and @nylas/react.

Where Pyas is different

• Calendar pricing. Developer is free for 3 accounts and usable in production. Starter is $15 for 10, Growth $45 for 60, Scale $75 for 200, then $0.25 each. 1,000 accounts cost $275 a month, billed monthly with no contract.
• A sandbox with no real accounts. Nylas creates a Sandbox application where you connect real accounts. Pyas's sandbox has simulated Google, Outlook and Zoom accounts with real-looking calendars, so you can build and run tests before anyone connects. Sandbox webhooks stream to your laptop with the CLI.
• Webhooks that carry IDs. A Pyas webhook names the event or calendar that changed, and your app reads it. That is one more request than a Nylas payload, and it means Pyas does not store copies of your users' events. Webhooks are signed, retried up to 8 attempts and replayable, and Pyas keeps Google push channels and Microsoft Graph subscriptions renewed.
• Writes that are safe to retry. Every write takes an idempotency key, and updates can carry a version check (If-Match) so a stale edit is refused instead of overwriting a newer one. Every event has UTC plus local time and its IANA time zone.
• Meeting times as well as free/busy. Free/busy covers up to 20 accounts, and meeting times returns the first slots where everyone is free inside working hours, with buffers, minimum notice, optional attendees and rooms.
• Zoom through the host's account. One conferencing field gives Meet on Google, Teams on Microsoft 365 work accounts and Zoom on any calendar. Zoom works through the host's connected Zoom account, and Pyas creates the meeting. Teams on an Outlook.com personal account is refused with a clear error.
• Account health. Each account reports its status, why it broke and the fix, with a connection.broken webhook. Users reconnect inside your app with PyasConnect and keep the same accountId.
• An MCP server with a read-only mode. The hosted server at mcp.pyas.io is added by URL with sign-in, and @pyas/mcp runs locally with a read-only mode. @pyas/ai-tools covers the Vercel AI SDK, LangChain, OpenAI and Anthropic tool use. Pyas runs no AI models.

Can you use both?

For the same users, it rarely makes sense. Each would ask the user to connect their Google or Microsoft account, so a person would approve two apps for overlapping access, and you would run two sets of webhooks over the same calendars.

It can make sense in two cases. The first is separate products: an email-heavy product on Nylas and a calendar-only product on Pyas, with different users. The second is a migration, where new signups connect through Pyas while existing users stay on Nylas until you move them.

Questions to ask before you choose

• Do you need email, contacts or recordings? If yes, Nylas.
• Are any of your users on iCloud, Yahoo or Exchange on-premises? Nylas supports them. Generic CalDAV is not supported by either.
• Do you want to go through Google's OAuth review yourself? On Nylas, you do unless you buy the Accelerator on Pro Annual or Enterprise. On Pyas, Pyas Auth covers it on every plan.
• How many calendar accounts will you have in a year? Run the numbers in the price table above at your expected size. The gap widens as accounts grow.
• Do you need booking pages or round robin? Nylas Scheduler has them. On Pyas you build that UI yourself on top of meeting times.
• What language is your backend? Nylas has Node.js, Python, Ruby and Kotlin/Java SDKs. Pyas has TypeScript today, with Python, PHP, Ruby and Go SDKs planned.

Moving from Nylas to Pyas

Events live in Google Calendar and Outlook, not in either API, so there is no event data to export or import. The work is in sign-in and in your own code.

1. Build against the sandbox first. Point your calendar code at Pyas test keys and the sandbox. Simulated accounts let you check event reads, writes, recurring series and meeting links before any user is touched.
2. Add PyasConnect. PyasConnect is a dialog in your own page, for React, Vue, Angular or plain HTML, backed by a one-line session endpoint with the SDK. It takes the place of Nylas's Hosted Auth page.
3. Have each user reconnect once. Users approve Pyas on Google's or Microsoft's consent screen. Their calendars are unchanged. Work tenants with Microsoft's default consent policy may need an administrator to approve, as they did before.
4. Map your webhook handlers. Nylas handlers that read the changed object from the payload now take the event or calendar ID from the Pyas webhook and fetch it. Verify the signature, and use replay to recover anything missed during the switch.
5. Map meeting links. Replace Nylas's autocreate field with Pyas's conferencing field. For Zoom, hosts connect their Zoom account instead of you running a Zoom application.
6. Turn off Nylas per user once their Pyas connection is healthy, so nobody is synced twice.

Looking for a Nylas alternative?

Start with why you are looking.

If you only need calendars

This is the common case. A product that never touches email pays for a platform built around it, and Nylas's calendar-only accounts are not included on its Free plan. Pyas covers Google Calendar, Outlook and Zoom with calendar pricing, and the free Developer plan works in production for 3 accounts.

If the shared Google app is the reason

If you are on Essentials or Pro Monthly and want to skip Google's review, Nylas asks you to move to Pro Annual and add $2,400 a year, and Microsoft still needs your own app. Pyas Auth covers Google, Microsoft and Zoom on every plan with monthly billing.

If you need booking pages

Nylas Scheduler gives you pages and components. With Pyas you build the page yourself and use meeting times for the slots. See use cases for what that looks like.

Other options

• Pyas vs. Cronofy
• Pyas vs. Apiroc
• Pyas vs. Unipile
• Pyas vs. Aurinko
• Building it yourself with the official Google Calendar API and Microsoft Graph. No per-account fee, but you register both apps, pass Google's review, store and refresh tokens, renew push channels and subscriptions, and handle two event formats.

The bottom line

Nylas is built for products where calendar is one part of communications: email, contacts, a Scheduler, a notetaker, a long provider list and SDKs in four languages. Pyas is built for products where the calendar is the job. It does calendars on Google, Outlook and Zoom, includes sign-in verified by Google, Microsoft and Zoom on every plan, and costs $150 a month at 500 accounts where Nylas Pro monthly comes to about $746.50. If calendars are what you need, start in the sandbox and compare the two at your own account count on the pricing page.