MCP gateway comparison
MCP Manager vs. Kong for MCP Gateway Governance
MCP Manager by Usercentrics is a dedicated MCP gateway. Kong is an API platform that added MCP support to its AI Gateway. If you need to keep PII out of your agents and govern every MCP server your teams use, MCP Manager is the better fit: it redacts personal data in tool results, pins approved tools against rug pulls, and governs local MCP servers on the workstation. Kong works well if you already run Kong for your APIs and want MCP traffic on the same gateway, self-hosted or in a non-US region.
TL;DR
- MCP Manager is built specifically for MCP governance. Kong adds MCP to an API and AI gateway that also handles REST APIs, LLM traffic, and agent-to-agent traffic.
- MCP Manager redacts PII in MCP tool results with stacked engines. Kong’s AI MCP Proxy docs list AI Guardrails as “not supported” for MCP traffic.
- MCP Manager pins approved tools, so a changed tool description is blocked. Kong lists “active notifications on tool changes” as not supported and documents no rug pull detection.
- MCP Manager governs local (stdio) MCP servers on the user’s workstation. Kong documents Streamable HTTP only.
- Kong offers self-hosted data planes and Konnect regions in the US, EU, and Asia Pacific. MCP Manager is SaaS hosted in the US only.
How We Compared MCP Manager and Kong
This comparison is written by the MCP Manager team and uses only public, verifiable sources. All information reflects what vendors published in November 2026.
We evaluated both gateways on ten criteria. Each one comes from questions platform, IT, and security teams ask during MCP gateway buying decisions.
- Connection effort for end usersA hard sign-in flow pushes employees toward unmanaged MCP servers, and shadow AI returns.
- Admin control down to the toolAdmins need to set who reaches which server and which tool, and whether access is read-only or read and write.
- Audit depthDebug logs show what broke. Forensic audits need user, session, and trace context on every call.
- Defenses against MCP-specific attacksRug pulls, tool poisoning, and prompt injection exploit how agents read tool descriptions and results.
- Vendor trustThe gateway sits in every tool call, so its certifications, track record, and uptime commitments become part of your risk.
- Server coverageRemote and local (stdio) servers both need to run through the gateway, or laptop MCP servers escape governance.
- PII protection on tool resultsPersonal data that reaches a model can’t be pulled back out, so filtering has to happen before that point.
- Price transparencyPublished plans and a free trial let a team test the gateway before any sales conversation.
- Support during evaluationFast access to people who know MCP shortens a proof of concept.
- Deployment and data residencyHosting regions and self-hosting options come up in nearly every enterprise security review.
MCP Manager vs. Kong AI Gateway: Feature Comparison
The biggest differences between MCP Manager and Kong AI Gateway are scope, PII controls, local server handling, rug pull protection, and hosting options. The table lays out each criterion side by side.
| Criterion | MCP Manager by Usercentrics | Kong AI Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated MCP gateway | MCP ManagerYes | KongOne part of an API and AI gateway with LLM and agent features |
| One gateway URL | MCP ManagerYes, users authorize once through SSO | KongYes, one route with MCP Server Bundling |
| Access per server and tool | MCP ManagerYes | KongYes, default-deny tool ACLs |
| Read-only and destructive filtering | MCP ManagerYes | KongNot documented, annotations “don’t change runtime behavior” |
| Audit log retention | MCP Manager14 days to 2 years by plan | KongNot documented |
| OTel export | MCP ManagerYes, Enterprise | KongYes |
| Rug pull and tool poisoning protection | MCP ManagerYes, tools pinned by name, title, and description | KongNot documented |
| Prompt injection protection | MCP ManagerYes, with rules you define on tool requests and responses | KongNot on MCP traffic; available through a Straiker integration |
| Security certifications | MCP ManagerISO/IEC 27001:2022 (Usercentrics) | KongSOC 2, GDPR, and PCI DSS |
| Local MCP servers on the user’s machine | MCP ManagerYes, workstation servers, Enterprise | KongNot documented |
| Remote MCP servers | MCP ManagerYes | KongYes, Streamable HTTP |
| REST APIs converted into MCP tools | MCP ManagerNo | KongYes |
| PII removed from tool results | MCP ManagerYes: block, replace, mask, hash, or redact | KongNo, AI Guardrails are “not supported” on MCP traffic |
| Multiple PII engines | MCP ManagerPresidio, AWS Bedrock Guardrails, Lakera Guard, custom webhook | KongNot documented for MCP traffic |
| Per-user identity | MCP ManagerYes | KongYes, through OAuth claims and consumer mapping |
| SSO | MCP ManagerOIDC, Enterprise | KongYes, Enterprise |
| SCIM | MCP ManagerYes, Enterprise | KongNot documented |
| Hosting | MCP ManagerSaaS, US only | KongSaaS with control planes in the US, EU, and four other regions |
| Self-hosted or on-premises | MCP ManagerNo | KongYes, self-hosted data planes |
| Pricing | MCP Manager$135 to $668 per month, Enterprise on request | KongPlus from $25 per month plus usage, Enterprise custom; the MCP proxy plugin requires AI Gateway Enterprise |
| Free trial | MCP Manager7 days on self-serve plans | Kong30 days |
| Support | MCP ManagerChat and tickets on all plans, Slack on Enterprise | KongEmail only on Plus, Slack on Enterprise |
Based on what each vendor published as of November 2026.
Overview
MCP Manager by Usercentrics Overview
MCP Manager by Usercentrics is an MCP gateway that sits between your AI clients and your MCP servers. Admins build an inventory of vetted servers, assign them to teams, and choose which tools each team can call. Every request passes through the gateway, where guardrails run and logs are written.
What MCP Manager Offers
Approved-server inventoryEach team gets one gateway URL that lists the MCP servers you vetted and nothing else.
Pinned toolsAdmins pick whether a tool is matched by name, title, or description. A tool whose pinned description changes after approval stops passing, which covers rug pulls and tool poisoning.
Read and write splitTools can be filtered by their read-only and destructive annotations. A team can read Salesforce records without being able to delete them.
PII filtering on tool resultsThe gateway cleans a response before the model sees it. Presidio is included from the Professional plan. AWS Bedrock Guardrails, Lakera Guard, and custom webhooks plug in on Enterprise.
Your own enforcement logicA custom rules engine sends each call to your webhook, which answers pass, modify, or block. The Google Drive folder blocker began as a rule written during a customer proof of concept.
Workstation serversLocal MCP servers run in Docker on the developer’s machine and dial out through a WireGuard tunnel. No inbound ports are opened.
Audit-grade recordsEach call is logged with about 45 fields, including trace and session IDs. Logs can be kept for up to 2 years and exported over OTel to Datadog, Grafana Cloud, or Splunk.
HIPAA-compliant loggingA HIPAA workspace never stores message contents or headers.
Named-user attributionPer server, calls run under each person’s own identity or under a shared service account.
Token reportingDashboards show which users, servers, and tools consume the most tokens.
What MCP Manager Does Not Cover
- US-only hosting: The gateway runs on Google Cloud us-east1, so EU or in-country residency rules can’t be met today.
- No self-hosted build: The gateway has no on-premises, VPC, or air-gapped version. Your own MCP servers can still live on your infrastructure.
- MCP is the whole scope: MCP Manager does not route LLM requests or manage REST APIs.
- No SAML: SSO runs on OIDC only.
- Enterprise gating: SSO, SCIM, workstation servers, OTel export, the custom rules engine, and AWS Bedrock Guardrails all need the Enterprise plan.
Who MCP Manager Is For
- Platform and IT teams rolling MCP out company-wide without building their own auth and integration layer.
- Security and compliance owners in financial services, insurance, and healthcare who need to show that PII and PHI never reached a model.
- Engineering groups whose developers run local MCP servers in Claude Code or Cursor.
- Companies that want MCP governance to stay independent of their LLM provider setup.
What to Consider
Pick MCP Manager if your main risk sits inside MCP traffic: personal data in tool results, tools that change after approval, and servers running on laptops. These controls are documented and can be tested during the 7-day trial. MCP Manager is hosted in the US today, so teams with EU residency or self-hosting requirements should confirm that fit early.
Overview
Kong AI Gateway for MCP Overview
Kong is an API management company that extended its AI Gateway to MCP. Its core products are Kong Gateway and the Kong Konnect control plane. The AI Gateway adds governance for LLM, MCP, and agent-to-agent traffic. MCP support arrived with the AI MCP Proxy plugin in Gateway 3.12, followed by tool ACLs in 3.13 and the AI MCP Server entity in AI Gateway 2.0 (September 2026). It is built for teams that already route APIs through Kong and want MCP on the same infrastructure.
What Kong Offers
One gateway for APIs, LLMs, and MCPMCP traffic shares routing, authentication, rate limiting, and analytics with the rest of your Kong setup.
REST-to-MCP conversionKong’s AI MCP Proxy plugin turns the REST APIs it already manages into MCP tools, so no separate MCP server has to be built.
MCP Server BundlingSeveral upstream MCP servers sit behind one route, and each caller sees only the tools their ACL allows.
Tool-level ACLsAccess starts at zero and is granted per tool by consumer, consumer group, or OAuth claim.
OAuth for MCPThe AI MCP OAuth2 plugin validates tokens from your identity provider. It is currently in “Tech Preview.”
Deployment choiceKonnect SaaS in six control plane regions, self-hosted data planes, and dedicated cloud gateways on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
What Kong Does Not Cover
- No native guardrails on MCP traffic: Kong’s AI MCP Proxy docs list AI Guardrails as “Not supported,” and the AI Gateway 2.0 docs say LLM prompt policies “won’t apply” to MCP servers. The AI PII Sanitizer is documented for LLM requests and responses only. A separate Straiker integration can inspect MCP calls.
- No documented rug pull protection: Kong lists “active notifications on tool changes” as not supported and documents no detection of changed tool descriptions.
- No documented local server coverage: Kong documents Streamable HTTP only. Stdio servers on developer machines are not covered.
- Annotations are informational: Read-only and destructive hints “don’t change runtime behavior,” so read versus write control depends on per-tool ACLs.
- Key controls need Enterprise: The AI MCP Proxy plugin requires AI Gateway Enterprise. SSO, audit logging, and RBAC in Konnect are Enterprise only.
- Engineer-first setup: Configuration runs through Konnect, decK, or Terraform. Kong does not document a connection flow aimed at non-technical users.
- Two configuration generations: The plugin pages and the AI Gateway 2.0 entity pages document different ACL and auth setups, so check which one applies to your version.
Who Kong Is For
- Companies that already run Kong Gateway or Konnect for their APIs.
- Platform teams that want to turn internal REST APIs into MCP tools.
- Organizations that need self-hosted data planes or EU and Asia Pacific hosting today.
- Teams that want LLM, MCP, and A2A traffic on one gateway with shared rate limits and analytics.
What to Consider
Kong is a good choice if MCP is one more traffic type on an API platform you already operate. If your goal is to keep PII out of agents, check what you would add on top: Kong’s own guardrails don’t run on MCP traffic, and stdio servers stay outside the gateway. Also confirm which Kong license tier covers the MCP features you need.
MCP Manager or Kong, Which Should You Choose?
The right pick depends on where your risk sits. MCP Manager covers PII, changed tools, and local servers inside the MCP gateway. Kong covers MCP as one more traffic type on an API platform, with self-hosted and non-US options.
Choose MCP Manager by Usercentrics If You
- Need PII removed from MCP tool results before any model sees them.
- Want approved tools pinned so a changed tool description is blocked automatically.
- Have developers running local MCP servers that should stay on their machines.
- Roll out MCP to non-technical teams who should connect in a few clicks.
- Need audit logs kept for up to 2 years, or HIPAA logs that never store message contents.
- Want a flat monthly price that doesn’t grow with request volume.
Choose Kong If You
- Already run Kong Gateway or Konnect and want MCP on the same infrastructure.
- Want to expose internal REST APIs as MCP tools.
- Must self-host data planes or host in the EU or Asia Pacific today.
- Have a platform team comfortable with decK, Terraform, and Kong plugins.
Why Teams Pick MCP Manager by Usercentrics Over Kong AI Gateway
Teams choose MCP Manager as a Kong alternative when the job is governing MCP itself. Data protection, tool controls, and local server coverage all sit inside one MCP gateway, with no partner products to add.
Guardrails That Run on MCP Traffic
Different data needs different protection, so MCP Manager lets each team run its own mix of regex rules, Presidio, AWS Bedrock Guardrails, Lakera Guard, and custom webhooks. When a policy needs something no engine covers, your team writes the rule. The Google Drive folder blocker began that way, during a customer proof of concept, and now ships to every Enterprise workspace.
Tools That Can’t Change Quietly
Admins pin approved tools by name, title, and description. If a pinned description changes, the tool stops passing the gateway. What your agents can do stays what an admin approved.
Laptop Servers Under the Same Rules
Workstation servers run in Docker on the developer’s machine and connect out through an encrypted WireGuard tunnel. No inbound ports are opened. Calls still pass through the gateway, with guardrails applied and logs written. Many MCP gateways cover remote servers only, so local servers on laptops stay outside governance.
Rollout Beyond Engineering
End users add one gateway URL to their AI client and sign in once. At Finimize, five mostly non-technical teams sent more than 30,000 messages through the gateway in the first month, and four servers that had been off limits went live.
MCP Manager kept our posture exactly the same as it was, while allowing us to use these tools.
Finimize CTO
A Gateway Built Around MCP
MCP Manager handles the awkward parts of the protocol: GitHub wanting a personal access token, Atlassian’s split auth, and servers that use dynamic client registration. Remote, managed, and workstation servers share one inventory, with one URL per team.
Pricing Without a Usage Meter
MCP Manager plans run from $135 to $668 per month, with a 7-day free trial on every self-serve plan. Limits are set by servers, gateways, and log retention, so tool call volume does not change the bill. Costs stay predictable as more teams and agents join.
Put MCP Manager by Usercentrics Up Against Your Own Setup
Pick one MCP server your teams want and one data rule your policy demands. In a live demo, the MCP Manager team walks through PII filtering, tool pinning, and workstation servers with those two in mind, so you can judge the fit before you decide anything.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
MCP Manager vs. Kong, which MCP gateway is better for regulated industries?
For regulated industries, MCP Manager is a good choice. It removes PII from tool results, pins tools against rug pulls, and offers HIPAA logging with a BAA on Enterprise. Kong fits teams that extend an existing Kong API gateway to MCP or must self-host.
How does MCP Manager block MCP rug pulls?
MCP Manager pins approved tools by name, title, and description. If a pinned description changes after approval, the tool stops passing the gateway. Admins choose which fields to pin, so description pinning must be switched on to catch this type of change.
Which MCP gateway supports both remote and local servers?
MCP Manager supports both. Remote servers connect through the gateway, and workstation servers run in Docker on the user’s machine behind an outbound WireGuard tunnel with no inbound ports. Local server support requires Enterprise. Many MCP gateways cover remote servers only.
How do MCP Manager and Kong compare on pricing?
MCP Manager charges flat monthly plans from $135 to $668, plus Enterprise, with a 7-day free trial. Kong Konnect Plus starts at $25 per month plus usage, with AI Gateway paid plugins as an add-on. Kong’s MCP proxy plugin requires AI Gateway Enterprise.
How do MCP Manager and Kong compare on deployment?
Kong offers Konnect control planes in six regions, including the EU, plus self-hosted and dedicated cloud data planes. MCP Manager is SaaS only, hosted on Google Cloud in the US. It does not offer EU hosting or a self-hosted gateway today.
What is a good Kong alternative for MCP governance?
MCP Manager by Usercentrics is a Kong alternative built only for MCP. It covers private server registries, tool pinning, PII filtering on tool results, workstation servers, and audit logs tied to named users, with flat monthly pricing and a free trial.