Integration Infrastructure Comparison
Ampersand vs Nango: Integration Infrastructure vs An Auth Layer
Ampersand is the native integration infrastructure for real-time direct integrations: sync engine, writes, field mapping, custom objects, embeddable UI, observability, and sub-second webhooks. Nango gives you OAuth and a passthrough proxy. Everything else is left for you to build. Here's how they compare.
What You Still Have To Build Yourself With Nango
Nango gives you OAuth, a proxy, and a scheduled sync runner. Here's what you own on top — in your own codebase, for every integration:
- Custom object & custom field discovery per customer
- Per-customer field mapping UI and config store
- Write actions, conflict resolution, and idempotency
- Real-time webhook subscription + delivery pipeline
- Rate limit backoff and retry logic per provider
- Embeddable React UI for auth, mappings, sync settings
- Observability, error routing, and customer-facing status
- Connector maintenance as provider APIs change
Where Ampersand wins
The advantages that matter most when product teams actually calculate the total cost of ownership.
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A platform, not a primitive
Nango gives you OAuth and a proxy. Ampersand gives you OAuth + sync engine + writes + field mapping + custom objects + embeddable UI + observability + real-time webhooks + 200+ managed connectors.
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The real cost isn't the license
Ampersand provides a full integration solution out of the box. Nango requires a heavy engineering lift for deep integration logic.
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Sub-second real-time sync
Ampersand's event-driven architecture delivers webhook notifications in under one second. Nango's default sync frequency is not real time. It is difficult to build an enterprise AI agent without real-time data.
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Embeddable UI out of the box
Ampersand ships white-labeled React components for auth, field mapping, and sync settings.
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Custom objects, no code required
Ampersand treats custom objects and fields as first-class across every connector, on every tier. Nango provides you proxy access.
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Built for AI agents
Ampersand's open-source AI SDK exposes integrations as tools that LLMs can invoke. Docs MCP lets Claude Code and Cursor generate integrations in minutes.
What Customers Say
"Using Ampersand, we cut Julian's response time from 60 seconds to 5."
"We chose Ampersand because we want to build an integration that we don't need to rebuild, and we want to meaningfully accelerate our upmarket journey."
"Ampersand is the first developer platform that gets it right."
"Ampersand is core to how we grow."
"Ampersand is helping Square connect to more upmarket Sellers, driving strong revenue growth."
When to Choose Each Platform
We believe in being honest. These tools solve different problems — most teams will eventually want both.
Choose Nango When You Need…
- OAuth — a token vault and callback handler
- A passthrough API proxy for shallow access to a number of providers
- To hand-roll a small number of integrations end-to-end yourself
- Full self-hosting on infrastructure you control
- An open-source-first stack and you have engineering capacity to build the platform layer
Choose Ampersand When You Need…
- A full integration platform, not just OAuth plumbing
- Deep CRM/ERP integrations with custom objects and fields
- Real-time, sub-second data for AI agents or voice products
- Per-customer field mappings with a pre-built UI
- Bi-directional sync with conflict resolution
- Credential ownership and zero vendor lock-in
- To ship enterprise-grade integrations without hiring an integrations team
- An integration you don't need to rebuild as you scale
Frequently Asked Questions
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Is Nango actually just an auth layer?
Nango's offers strong auth into a number of connectors: it handles authorization flows, stores tokens, and exposes a proxy so you can call provider APIs with fresh credentials. It also ships a scheduled sync runner and lets you write custom sync/action handlers in TypeScript. But everything above the auth and proxy layer — sync orchestration with conflict resolution, per-customer field mapping UI, real-time webhooks, custom object abstractions, embeddable components, observability — is work your team owns. Ampersand ships all of that as product.
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What does sub-second sync unlock?
Ampersand's event-driven architecture delivers webhook notifications in under one second, which is the difference between an AI voice agent that feels real-time and one that pauses awkwardly while polling waits for the next sync cycle.
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What about custom objects in Salesforce or HubSpot?
Ampersand treats custom objects and custom fields as first-class, across every connector, on every tier. With Nango, custom objects are something you hand-roll via the proxy — discovery, schema diffing, field mapping, writes, and UI are all things your team writes and maintains per integration per customer.
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What's the true cost comparison?
Ampersand provides deep integration infrastructure, freeing your engineers' time and allowing them to focus on core work: your product. With Nango, your team will be responsible for the full integration logic. The true cost is measured by engineering time saved and opportunity cost unlocked.
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Can I migrate from Nango to Ampersand?
Yes. Ampersand supports OAuth token import, so you can bring your existing customer tokens across without asking them to re-authenticate. You can move one integration at a time and gradually retire your custom sync code.
Outgrowing Nango's Auth Layer?
Ampersand picks up where Nango leaves off. Get the full platform — sync, writes, field mapping, UI, and real-time webhooks — without spending the next six months building it yourself.