Choose Nylas if
- Your agent augments a human user's existing inbox (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud) rather than operating independently.
- You need calendar and contacts sync alongside mail.
- Your product ships as a feature inside a B2B SaaS where end-users expect to connect their own accounts.
Choose Loomal if
- The agent should have its own mailbox separate from any human user.
- You want to avoid the security and privacy burden of storing OAuth grants for thousands of user inboxes.
- Credentials and 2FA for the agent's downstream services live in the same identity as the mailbox.
- You want per-agent revocation that cascades across everything.
Feature-by-feature
| Feature | Loomal | Nylas | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration model | Agent owns its own inbox | Connect to human's existing inbox | |
| OAuth to Gmail/Outlook | Not applicable (agent has own domain) | First-class | |
| Per-agent identity | Native | Per-user account | |
| Credential vault | AES-256 per identity | None (out of scope) | |
| TOTP generation | Built in | None | |
| Calendar API | Beta — calendar_* primitives | First-class, unified across providers | |
| Contacts API | None | Unified contacts sync | |
| Thread stitching | Automatic | Automatic | |
| MCP server | First-party | Community only | |
| Delegation chain | Native | Not a concept |
Whose inbox is the agent using?
Nylas answers the question 'how does my app reach into my users' existing mailboxes?' That's a real problem — B2B SaaS companies need it, CRMs need it, scheduling tools need it. Nylas is the mature answer.
Loomal answers a different question: 'how does my AI agent have an inbox in the first place?' When the agent is autonomous and acts on its own behalf, the right answer is usually 'its own mailbox, not someone's Gmail.' No OAuth flow to maintain, no scope creep on a human's account, no fragile token refresh loop.
Security model differences
Storing OAuth grants for users' inboxes is a big responsibility. You're a phishing target, a data-residency concern, and a regulatory obligation. Nylas makes this tractable but doesn't remove the fact that you now have tokens to every user's primary email.
Loomal's model sidesteps that risk entirely. The agent has its own mailbox under its own identity; the blast radius of a compromise is that one agent, not thousands of users. Revoking the identity revokes everything. This is a structural security win for agent workloads that don't need to be inside a human's inbox.
Hybrid patterns
Some products legitimately need both. An AI executive assistant that schedules meetings on a user's calendar needs Nylas for the human side. The same assistant might use Loomal for its own administrative mailbox where confirmations, reminders, and 2FA codes land before being acted on. These don't conflict — they operate in different scopes.
FAQ
Can Loomal connect to a user's Gmail via OAuth?
Not natively. If you need to read a human's inbox, Nylas or Google's own API is the right tool. Loomal gives the agent its own mailbox — a different answer to a different question.
Does Loomal have calendar support?
Yes — calendar primitives (calendar.create, calendar.list, etc.) are part of the MCP server. It's not as deep as Nylas's calendar unification across providers.
What about contacts?
Loomal doesn't currently have a contacts API. If you need unified contact sync across providers, Nylas is the right tool.
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Last updated: 2026-04-15