Knock vs Merge
Side-by-side trajectory, velocity, and editorial themes.
Knock is rewiring notifications infrastructure to be configured by agents, not just developers.
Knock is methodically rebuilding its primitives — audiences, layouts, reusable steps, in-app guides — so they're versioned, environment-promotable, and addressable from an agent in addition to the dashboard and CLI. The recent run shows a clear pattern: each new feature ships with at least one agent-accessible path. Underneath, the engineering surface is also tightening, with reusable request input schemas making composability less guesswork.
Knock is positioning its platform as agent-buildable messaging infrastructure rather than just a developer SDK. Skills, dynamic audiences, and schema'd reusable steps are the building blocks of a future where a product team agent (or Knock's own) can spin up an entire notification flow without a developer touching code. The Layouts 2.0 refresh and Guides toolbar work in parallel to harden the human surfaces that remain.
Expect Knock to publish a more opinionated agent surface — likely an MCP-style server or an in-product agent that orchestrates skills against dynamic audiences. The reusable-input-schemas release is the kind of plumbing that precedes a 'build a workflow from a prompt' demo, so a higher-level natural-language workflow composer is the most probable next move.
Merge is building an AI-infrastructure stack alongside its unified-API core, with Gateway emerging as a safety/governance layer.
Merge Unified continues a weekly cadence of API maintenance and connector expansion, with Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP launching for Accounting in beta. Merge Agent Handler — the MCP/agent-tools product — is shipping new connectors almost weekly and added Scoped Access Keys for least-privilege agent runtimes. Merge Gateway, the LLM gateway, just shipped Prompt Injection Protection, DLP, RBAC, audit trails, model pinning, and provider-free routing in back-to-back weeks.
Merge is no longer just a unified-API company. Two adjacent products — Agent Handler and Gateway — are getting the heaviest investment, while Unified gets steady connector and reliability work. The Gateway moves into safety and governance target enterprise AI deployments where native provider safety isn't enough. Agent Handler's connector pace suggests Merge wants to be the default tool-pack provider for agent builders.
Expect more Gateway governance features (custom DLP rules, broader vendor support, finer role-based controls) and continued weekly connector drops in Agent Handler — most likely targeting enterprise-SaaS gaps. The Unified roadmap may start incorporating agent-shaped endpoints, blurring lines between Unified and Agent Handler.
See more alternatives to Knock →
See more alternatives to Merge →