Paragon vs Tray.ai (2026)

ActionKit is one API and MCP server giving an agent hundreds of integration actions across Paragon's connectors, with a uniform interface, agent optimized action schemas and real time execution. The Connect Portal handles OAuth and API key authorization per end user, so each action runs as that user and agents take authenticated action in the user's own SaaS tools.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/learn/actionkitread 2026-09-22

Agent Gateway exposes Tray workflows as composite tools and individual operations from 700+ connectors as tools over MCP, with tools authenticating by shared service credentials or the end user's own, an access allowlist, OAuth2 or API token for the calling client, RBAC and rate limits; agents built in Merlin Agent Builder take actions by running Tray workflows as tools.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-gateway/overviewread 2026-09-22

Workflows is Paragon's embedded iPaaS for event driven automations, with integration logic authored in TypeScript or a low code editor. A workflow can start from the customer's app, third party webhooks, an integration enabled event, a scheduler or another workflow, and API resources supply reusable triggers and steps. Steps are sequenced, branched and routed deterministically, executions can be reviewed step by step in Monitoring, and CI/CD and Git repo sync are supported.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/learn/workflowsread 2026-09-22

Tray is a workflow platform with an agent layer on top: workflows sequence steps with conditional logic, branching and looping, retries and timeouts, and an agent project combines a scope, data sources, workflows as tools and a model, so autonomous agent steps run alongside deterministic workflow nodes. Composite tools package multi-step business logic as a single callable tool.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-builder/overviewread 2026-09-22

Third party events are forwarded to the customer's agent so it can work in the background and respond to what happens in a user's tools. One API subscribes to any user integration event, with normalized webhook policies across integrations. Workflows can be started by app events, integration webhooks, an API resource webhook or a scheduler, so work begins without a person asking.

Sourceuseparagon.comread 2026-09-22

Workflows start from connector triggers and webhook subscriptions, scheduled polling for new data and an alerting trigger, and agents are reachable through interaction channels in Slack and Microsoft Teams as well as the API.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-builder/interaction-channelsread 2026-09-22

Managed Sync runs fully managed ingestion pipelines over each end user's third-party sources (files, CRM records, tickets, accounting data). It has automatic backfill, incremental sync, failure recovery and normalized schemas, and scales to hundreds of millions of records. A Permissions API enforces the source system's access control on the ingested data for RAG, and records and file content can then be queried through the Sync API. The synced store persists, scales past any context window and stays queryable.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/learn/managed-syncread 2026-09-22

Adding a data source in Merlin Agent Builder connects a system (Google Drive, Gmail, Confluence, SharePoint or a custom connector), syncs and processes the documents and stores the content in a vector table that supports semantic search, which the agent queries through a Knowledge Search tool included by default. New documents join that table without any retraining, and it persists and holds far more than fits in the model's context window.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-builder/data-sourcesread 2026-09-22

Each connected user's authorization and synced third party records persist. Managed Sync, ActionKit and Workflows have no memory layer that keeps an agent's state or a user's context across runs. The synced data store holds records, not agent memory with a set scope or lifetime.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/learn/managed-syncread 2026-09-22

Merlin Agent Builder includes short and long term memory, so agents keep track of session history and refer back to a user's prior conversations automatically, with a sliding context window keeping each exchange focused. It is built for the case where an agent would otherwise forget a user's earlier issue every time that user returns, so memory carries across conversations. Knowledge synced into the agent's vector table is kept separately from memory.

Sourcetray.ai/company/news/merlin-agent-builder-user-adoption-releaseread 2026-09-25

End users authorize each integration for themselves in the Connect Portal and can be shown or particular workflows through Workflow Permissions, and the customer controls which actions its product exposes. Those settings limit what an agent may do, but there is no step where a person reviews, approves or validates an agent action before it commits.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/connect-portal/workflow-permissionsread 2026-09-22

In workflows, an approval step can be inserted anywhere and routed to Slack, email or a custom form, and the run pauses and resumes automatically once the decision is made, and agents built in Merlin Agent Builder act by running those workflows as tools.

Guardrails also pause an agent when confidence is low or when an action falls outside its defined scope, and surface the decision to a person before it continues, and Merlin Agent Builder includes approval workflows for sensitive actions.

Around that sit an Agent Gateway access allowlist, RBAC, rate limits, agent scope, log masking and an execution kill switch.

Sourcetray.ai/glossary/human-in-the-loopread 2026-09-25

Compliance covers SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR, and the plans include GDPR and SOC 2 compliance as a feature. A Trust Center and security documentation cover encryption standards, access control and a signable DPA. On the access side there is SAML based SSO on Enterprise, managed OAuth and API key authorization per end user through the Connect Portal with signed user tokens, and workflow permissions restricting which users or groups see which integrations.

Sourceuseparagon.com/pricingread 2026-09-22

Compliance covers SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, GDPR and CCPA, and Tray says every agent action, MCP tool call and workflow run is traceable to a user. Access controls cover organizations and workspaces, user roles, two factor settings, an access allowlist and RBAC on Agent Gateway, log masking to hide a step's inputs and outputs, and administration of which Merlin AI features are enabled.

Sourcetray.ai/platformread 2026-09-22

Monitoring gives per-event visibility across the integration stack. It keeps searchable atomic logs of every project event, ActionKit tool-call logs with payloads inspected in real time, trigger subscription events and payloads, workflow executions with step-by-step breakdowns and failure details, and a Connected Users dashboard of each user's connection health. Events route to the customer's own stack through Event Destinations (Slack, Datadog, New Relic, Sentry) and the Task History API.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/monitoring/overviewread 2026-09-22

Every workflow run produces debug logs showing each step's input and output, agents have their own logs and debugging view, Agent Gateway has an observability and monitoring page for tool execution, and Tray streams workflow logs to an external endpoint for the customer's own tooling, with log masking, disabling of log storage and anomaly detection as controls. Every agent action, MCP tool call and workflow run is traceable to a user.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/enterprise-core/logs-debugging/log-streamingread 2026-09-22

Hosting runs either in Paragon's own cloud or entirely on the customer's infrastructure. On premises hosting comes with a managed instance configuration, and the Enterprise plan includes self hosting and forward deployment.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/on-premise/hosting-paragon-on-premiseread 2026-09-22

A Tray instance is hosted in a data region the customer picks, US, EU or APAC, so business data does not leave the region it originated in, with API base URLs for each region and setups across several regions for multinational or embedded use. For systems behind the firewall, Tray offers an on premises agent and AWS PrivateLink connectivity.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/enterprise-core/organisation-management/regional-hostingread 2026-09-22

The connector catalog and action library give an agent actions to call, but these are integration capabilities, not packaged assets. The use case library offers implementation guides, not assets a customer adopts. Paragon has no ready made workflows, templates or role specific agents of its own.

Sourceuseparagon.com/use-case/libraryread 2026-09-22

Buyers start from preconfigured agent accelerators, each with a predefined scope for its use case: a Knowledge agent, an ITSM agent and a Support ticket agent, alongside prebuilt tools and workflow templates that can be customized.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-builder/configurationread 2026-09-22

Paragon serves integration actions to whatever model or framework the customer runs. ActionKit is delivered as an API or MCP server with agent optimized schemas and is used from the customer's own agent code. Paragon has no model of its own, so the model is the customer's choice throughout.

Sourceuseparagon.comread 2026-09-22

Each agent runs on Tray's native default model or on the customer's own, connected through API keys from third party providers such as OpenAI or AWS Bedrock, with the provider and the specific model version chosen in the agent dashboard.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-builder/configurationread 2026-09-22

The platform is built for developers. Its APIs and SDKs include a front end Connect SDK, headless Connect Portal APIs, the ActionKit and Sync APIs with published OpenAPI specs, a Permissions API and a Task History API. Builders also get a custom integration builder, custom actions, a hosted demo environment and a self hostable MCP server.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/llms.txtread 2026-09-22

Tray publishes OpenAPI specifications for the Tray Platform and Tray Embedded APIs, a Connector Development Kit for building and testing custom connectors, developer tools including a connector tester and operations explorer, embedded auth dialogs for the customer's own end users, and Tray Headless MCP for connecting Cursor, Windsurf, Codex or Claude Code to the platform.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/tray-headless/tray-headless-mcpread 2026-09-22

Changes move through Release Environments, which test and deploy them before production, and versioned releases name breaking changes. A hosted demo environment and an ActionKit playground let teams try actions, and logs help debug failures. There is no way to score a change, such as test cases, a pass rate or a judge verdict.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/deploying-integrations/release-environmentsread 2026-09-22

Tray's library offers an AI evaluation framework, a template that uses an LLM as a judge to review each input prompt and agent response against set criteria, covering response quality, conversation flow, edge cases and behavioral consistency. The judge returns structured feedback and quantitative metrics tracked over time, so a team can compare versions of an agent and see whether a change improved it. A built in test chat shows each reply with the tools considered, whether the knowledge base was searched, processing time and token usage.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/library/template/6480885f-d884-469c-8c80-77a2f36a4b61-get-started-with-ai-evaluationsread 2026-09-25

Paragon reaches third party apps through their APIs and its own connectors. It runs no browser, desktop or remote computer session for an agent, and no headless fetch or third party browser engine is wired in.

Sourcedocs.useparagon.com/learn/actionkitread 2026-09-22

Tray acts through connectors, workflows and MCP tools that call APIs. It does not describe a browser, desktop or remote computer session it drives for an agent, or a headless fetch or third party browsing engine of its own.

Sourcetray.ai/documentation/platform/artificial-intelligence/agent-gateway/overviewread 2026-09-22