Vertical SaaS with strict compliance
Own customer communications data to satisfy bank, healthcare, or public sector procurement requirements.
Riposte vs Merge
Own the email sync layer Merge hosts for you
Merge delivers a hosted unified API across dozens of SaaS categories. Riposte focuses on deep email and calendar sync with infrastructure you run, so sensitive content never leaves your environment.
- ✓ Keep Gmail, Microsoft 365, and IMAP payloads in your databases
- ✓ Customize schemas, retention, and replay windows without SaaS constraints
- ✓ Run syncs next to the systems that consume them for better latency and control
When Merge is great—and when Riposte wins
Merge shines when you need to ship many SaaS integrations quickly. Their proxy normalizes HR, ATS, ticketing, CRM, and accounting APIs while Merge Link walks end users through authentication. That breadth comes from Merge managing connectivity, storage, and queuing on their side.
Teams building messaging-heavy products often hit the limits of a general-purpose proxy. Riposte gives you raw access to every message object, header, and MIME part inside infrastructure you manage. You set retention policies, logging destinations, and webhook consumers instead of working through a managed passthrough.
Because Riposte is purpose-built for email and calendar, product teams get deeper features—operator tooling, backfill management, and provider-specific tuning—without sacrificing security posture or latency.
Riposte vs Merge at a glance
Product scope
Riposte
Email and calendar sync with unified schemas, webhooks, and admin tooling.
Merge
Broad unified API covering HR, ATS, CRM, ticketing, and more with lightweight email coverage.
Hosting model
Riposte
Self-hosted runtime that lives next to the apps and data stores you already trust.
Merge
Merge-managed proxy and data warehouse running in their SaaS environment.
Data ownership
Riposte
Full custody of normalized records, logs, and credentials in your own storage layer.
Merge
Merge caches normalized objects and metadata to deliver their API.
Customization
Riposte
Extend the schema, build custom pipelines, and run SQL on every entity.
Merge
Work within Merge's common schema and passthrough endpoints.
Backfills and replays
Riposte
Trigger selective backfills, replay any webhook, and inspect sync checkpoints via the admin portal.
Merge
Rely on Merge support and dashboard controls for re-syncs across all customers.
Observability
Riposte
First-party metrics, logs, and traces that integrate with your monitoring stack.
Merge
SaaS dashboards expose high-level status with limited raw event access.
Use cases that favor Riposte
High-volume product experiences
Run sync workers next to your application to minimize latency spikes and avoid shared vendor rate limits.
Data engineering pipelines
Model raw email data in your warehouse without copying it into another vendor's normalization layer first.
How each platform fits into your stack
Embedded in your infrastructure
Riposte deploys as services inside your Kubernetes cluster or VM fleet. Configuration lives in source control and secrets stay in your vault.
- Integrate with Terraform, Helm, or other automation you already use.
- Push metrics into Prometheus, Datadog, or CloudWatch without leaving your boundary.
- Customize retry logic, concurrency, and transformations per tenant.
How each platform fits into your stack
External proxy layer
Merge sits between your product and the provider APIs. You call Merge endpoints and they call downstream services on your behalf.
- Authentication flows and dashboards run on Merge Link.
- Rate limits and caching policies apply globally across Merge customers.
- Deep customizations require passthrough requests and custom code per provider.
Customer support and roadmap
Riposte
Talk directly with the engineers who build Riposte. Roadmap requests and incident escalations happen in shared Slack or dedicated channels during implementation.
Merge
Merge provides responsive support, but changes funnel through their general queue alongside every other vertical they support.
See Riposte as your Merge alternative
If you need deeper control over email and calendar data than a generalized unified API can provide, Riposte keeps everything in your environment.