Hosts, registries and gateways compared 16 products that host, list or front MCP servers, read on 4 November 2026 and scored on one published rubric: transport, sign-in, per-tool scoping, limits, price and discoverability. Every cell carries its evidence and a source link; nothing is scored without one.
Hosts and tool gateways Hosts and tool gateways: rubric values as read on 4 November 2026 Product Remote transport OAuth with client registration Per-tool auth scoping Hosting and scale limits Pricing Cloudflare Streamable HTTP only yes, DCR and CIMD yes, at the portal 80 servers per portal not published for MCP Vercel Streamable HTTP only bring your own AS; CIMD on Vercel MCP scopes per handler Vercel Functions limits Functions pricing Composio HTTP Composio holds app OAuth yes, allowed_tools 2,000 to 10,000 requests a minute 0 / 29 USD / custom Zapier MCP Streamable HTTP only OAuth for clients yes, app and action level task quota included, tasks per call Mintlify MCP Streamable HTTP client credentials at /authed/mcp/oauth/token public versus authed endpoints published rate limits MCP included; WebMCP Pro or Enterprise Apify MCP Streamable HTTP and stdio OAuth tools parameter selects Actors Actor run limits per Actor run Browserbase MCP Streamable HTTP no, API key in URL no not stated not stated on MCP pages
Registries and directories Registries and directories: rubric values as read on 4 November 2026 Product Remote transport Registry submission Discoverability by agents Own server in the registries Smithery Streamable HTTP (registry entries) unclear after acquisition catalog browse only no own server found Glama lists both open, Add Server button API with key and attribution not found Official MCP Registry records both CLI with namespace verification open paginated API not applicable GitHub MCP Registry records remotes not documented on the page open API and install buttons yes Claude Connectors Directory remote HTTPS required portal, automated scan, optional human review inside Claude docs server listed
AI gateways AI gateways: rubric values as read on 4 November 2026 Product Protocols fronted Auth passthrough Caching Pricing Observability Cloudflare AI Gateway model APIs; MCP goes through portals BYOK or Unified Billing yes, free free core, 5 percent on credits analytics and logs Vercel AI Gateway model APIs BYOK with system fallback not on the pricing page no markup, paid add-ons budgets, reporting, trace drains Portkey model APIs and MCP credential injection simple cache, 1-day TTL on Developer free / 49 USD / custom per tool call logs Kong AI Gateway model APIs, MCP, A2A OAuth2 auth strategies semantic cache not published on the docs page OpenTelemetry, Konnect dashboards, audit logs
The rubric Remote transport Which remote transports the product serves or lists: Streamable HTTP, or the deprecated HTTP+SSE. OAuth with client registration Whether an agent can sign in without a human creating an app first: dynamic client registration or client ID metadata documents. Per-tool auth scoping Whether access can be limited tool by tool, not only for the server as a whole. Hosting and scale limits Limits the vendor publishes on servers, calls, size or concurrency. Observability What logs, analytics or health checks the owner of a server gets. Pricing The published price, with the date it was read. Registry submission How a server gets listed and whether the listing is verified. Discoverability by agents Whether an agent can find servers through the product, by a public catalog or an API. Own server in the registries Whether the vendor's own MCP server is listed where agents look, checked against the official registry.
AI gateways use their own five-line rubric, because they sit in front of model APIs and tools rather than hosting a server.
Protocols fronted Which protocols the gateway sits in front of: model APIs, MCP, A2A. Auth passthrough How caller identity and provider keys pass through the gateway. Caching What the gateway caches and how. Pricing The published price, with the date it was read. Observability What logs and traces the gateway exposes.
Head-to-heads Standards are compared in the reference entries .