An MCP gateway is a single control point that sits between AI agents and the Model Context Protocol servers they call. Instead of wiring every agent to every server, teams point clients at one endpoint that handles authentication, decides which tools each user can see, injects credentials and logs every call. The best options in 2026 are Docker MCP Gateway for local and container-first teams, Kong and Traefik for companies that already run an API gateway, and Obot, agentgateway and IBM ContextForge for teams that want open source control.
The category has grown up fast. MCP is now the default way agents reach SaaS apps, databases and internal APIs, and the newest spec revision (2026-07-28) pushed many gateways to update how they handle sessions. At the same time, security teams have learned that unmanaged MCP servers are a real risk. A gateway is usually the first place companies enforce policy, which is why “enterprise mcp gateway” has become a standard line item in AI platform budgets.
We ranked the products below on MCP depth (aggregation, tool filtering, OAuth handling), deployment flexibility, governance features and how clearly each vendor documents what it actually ships. If you are still choosing the servers themselves, start with our guide to the best MCP servers in 2026.
MCP Gateways At A Glance
Product
Best For
Key Strength
Pricing Model
Docker MCP Gateway
Developers and container-first teams
Each MCP server runs in its own isolated container
Open source (MIT); org governance via Docker sales
Kong AI Gateway
Companies already on Kong
One control plane for API, LLM and MCP traffic
Enterprise license for MCP plugins
Obot
Self-hosted enterprise MCP platforms
Gateway, catalog and hosting in one MIT-licensed project
Free Community edition; Cloud and Enterprise paid
agentgateway
Kubernetes and platform teams
Rust data plane with CEL-based tool authorization
Open source (Apache 2.0)
IBM ContextForge
Federating MCP, REST and gRPC
Turns existing APIs into MCP tools
Open source (Apache 2.0)
TrueFoundry MCP Gateway
Regulated and air-gapped enterprises
Virtual MCP servers with RBAC and guardrails
Free start, then paid tiers
Cloudflare MCP Server Portals
Zero Trust customers
Identity-aware portal with token-saving modes
Free up to 50 users, then per seat
Composio MCP Gateway
Teams that need many SaaS tools fast
Large managed toolkit library with central OAuth
Free tier, Pro from $29 per month, Enterprise
Mintive (formerly MintMCP)
Governing AI coding assistants
Role-based tool bundles with agent identities
Quote-based
Traefik Hub MCP Gateway
Fine-grained, argument-level policy
Task-based access control, deny by default
Free trial, then commercial license
Best MCP Gateways In 2026
1. Docker MCP Gateway — Open Source Gateway That Runs Every MCP Server In Its Own Container
Docker MCP Gateway is the engine behind the MCP Toolkit in Docker Desktop, and it can also run on plain Docker Engine as a CLI plugin. Clients connect to the gateway once. When an agent asks for a tool, the gateway finds the server that provides it, starts that server as a container if needed, injects the required credentials and forwards the call.
The standout feature is isolation. Each server runs with restricted privileges, network access and resources, which limits the damage a buggy or malicious server can do. Profiles group servers from catalogs, OCI images or the MCP Registry, and you can switch individual tools on or off inside a profile. Secrets stay in Docker’s secrets store rather than environment variables, and built-in OAuth flows cover services that need user tokens.
The gateway itself is MIT licensed and free. Organization-wide MCP policy sits under Docker’s AI Governance offering, which Docker currently lists as invite-only through its sales team. It suits developers and platform teams who already live in Docker and want a safe default for local and CI agent workflows.
Container isolation per MCP server
Profiles with per-tool allowlists
Logging and call tracing
Works with Docker Desktop or standalone Docker Engine
2. Kong AI Gateway — Enterprise MCP Proxy And OAuth Layer Built Into Kong Gateway
Kong added MCP support to its AI Gateway in version 3.12, and it has kept expanding it since. The AI MCP Proxy plugin can front existing MCP servers, aggregate them, and convert REST APIs that Kong already manages into MCP tools. The AI MCP OAuth2 plugin makes the gateway act as the OAuth resource server, validating tokens against your identity provider and keeping access tokens away from upstream servers by default.
What sets Kong apart is consolidation. Teams that already route REST, gRPC and LLM traffic through Kong can apply the same rate limits, ACLs, logging and analytics to MCP calls without adding a new product. Per-tool ACLs can key off OAuth token claims, and tools a caller cannot use are filtered out of discovery. Metrics flow into Konnect and on to SIEM or observability stacks.
The MCP plugins are part of Kong’s AI Gateway Enterprise offering, available self-managed or through Konnect, and some MCP pieces are still labeled tech preview. It is the natural pick for organizations with an existing Kong footprint and a central API platform team.
3. Obot — MIT-Licensed MCP Platform With Gateway, Catalog And Server Hosting
Obot is an open source control plane that bundles an MCP gateway, a curated catalog, sandboxed server hosting and an LLM gateway. Users reach approved servers through one governed endpoint, while admins decide which identity provider groups can use which servers. Obot can host servers itself as Docker containers or Kubernetes workloads, or proxy remote servers it does not run.
Two features stand out. Composite servers let admins assemble a virtual server from selected tools across several upstream servers, which keeps agent context small. The catalog also supports requests and approvals, so employees can ask for a new server without going around IT. Obot also offers shadow MCP detection and device monitoring through its Sentry component.
The Community edition is free and self-hosted for up to 100 users. Obot Cloud adds enterprise SSO with a 14-day trial, and Obot Enterprise covers unlimited users with support on a quote basis. It fits companies that want a full internal MCP platform without vendor lock-in.
4. agentgateway — Linux Foundation Rust Proxy For MCP, A2A And LLM Traffic
agentgateway is an open source data plane written in Rust and governed as a Linux Foundation project, with Solo.io as a major contributor. It handles ordinary HTTP, gRPC and TCP traffic alongside MCP, agent-to-agent (A2A) and LLM calls, so one proxy can cover most of an agent stack.
For MCP, it federates tools from multiple servers behind one endpoint and supports stdio, SSE and Streamable HTTP transports. Authorization uses a CEL policy engine that can match on JWT claims, and the gateway filters unauthorized tools from list responses so agents never see them. It supports MCP OAuth, exposes metrics, logs and distributed traces, and can inspect tool calls and responses in flight.
It runs standalone with a flat YAML file or inside Kubernetes through a built-in controller with Gateway API support. The project is Apache 2.0 licensed, and Solo.io sells an enterprise distribution built on it and kgateway. Choose it if your platform team prefers cloud native building blocks over a packaged product.
5. IBM ContextForge — Open Source Registry That Federates MCP, REST And gRPC Behind One Endpoint
ContextForge is an Apache 2.0 project published under IBM’s GitHub organization. It acts as both a registry and a proxy, combining MCP servers, A2A agents and REST or gRPC services behind a single endpoint with shared governance and observability.
Its biggest strength is API conversion. ContextForge can wrap REST APIs as MCP tools with automatic JSON Schema extraction, and it can translate gRPC services through reflection. That makes it useful for companies with large internal API estates that want agents to reach them without writing new servers. It adds JWT and OAuth options, user-scoped tokens, rate limiting, an admin UI with live logs, and OpenTelemetry tracing to backends such as Jaeger and Phoenix.
You can install it from PyPI, run it as a container, deploy a Compose stack with PostgreSQL and Redis, or use the Helm chart for Kubernetes and OpenShift. It is free to use. IBM does not position it as a separately supported commercial product, so teams should plan for community support unless they arrange otherwise.
6. TrueFoundry MCP Gateway — Governed Gateway With Virtual MCP Servers For VPC And Air-Gapped Deployments
TrueFoundry is an AI infrastructure platform, and its MCP Gateway module connects agents to public and self-hosted servers through one governed layer. A central registry lists approved servers and tools, with approval flows that control which roles can reach each one.
Virtual MCP servers let admins combine selected tools from several sources into one logical server. Access control supports RBAC and ABAC, including read versus write distinctions, and the gateway manages and refreshes per-user OAuth tokens. Guardrails can inspect tool inputs and outputs, and tracing covers MCP calls, agent decisions and LLM requests filtered by user, team or tool.
Deployment is the main reason buyers shortlist it. TrueFoundry runs in your VPC, on premises, air-gapped or across clouds, and it advertises SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR support. A free start includes 30,000 tool calls a month before paid plans apply. It suits regulated enterprises that also want model routing and agent hosting from the same vendor.
MCP server portals are part of Cloudflare One, the company’s Zero Trust platform. Admins put up to 80 remote MCP servers behind a single portal URL, choose which tools and prompts each portal exposes, and let Cloudflare Access handle sign-in through the company identity provider.
Portals add practical controls you rarely find elsewhere. Admins can rename tools and override descriptions without touching upstream servers, and context modes such as search-and-execute cut the token cost of large tool lists. Private servers can sit behind Cloudflare Tunnel, and optional Gateway routing adds HTTP logging and DLP scanning of requests and responses. Each tool call is logged per portal and per server.
Portals only support remote HTTP servers, so stdio servers need a wrapper. Cloudflare One is free for up to 50 users, with pay-as-you-go seats beyond that and Logpush reserved for Enterprise contracts. It is a strong fit for teams already running Cloudflare Zero Trust.
8. Composio MCP Gateway — Managed Gateway With A Large Toolkit Library And Centralized OAuth
Composio started as an integration platform for agents and now offers a managed MCP gateway on top of its toolkit library. The gateway combines Composio’s managed integrations with your own custom MCP servers behind one endpoint, and it gives each team its own scoped MCP URL.
Its edge is breadth and auth. Composio handles OAuth connections, service accounts and token refresh centrally, so credentials never reach the agent. Policies work at org, team, user and action level, which means you can block a single destructive action while leaving the rest of a toolkit available. The gateway can also return only the tools relevant to a task, and it logs user, team, tool and outcome for each call with SIEM-ready export.
Composio is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified. The Hobby plan is free with 100,000 tool calls a month, Pro starts at $29 a month with usage billing, and Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, VPC or self-hosted deployment. Teams comparing it with similar platforms can read our roundup of Composio alternatives.
9. Mintive (formerly MintMCP) — Commercial Gateway For Governing AI Coding Assistants And Agent Identities
MintMCP renamed itself Mintive in October 2026, bringing its MCP gateway, Mint Guard, agent monitoring and LLM gateway under one brand. Existing customers carry over unchanged, and the product still centers on the MCP gateway.
Admins approve which servers teams can use, group tools into role-based bundles and switch off destructive tools. Each role gets one endpoint with tools preconfigured, which makes rollout to tools such as Cursor straightforward. Every agent gets its own delegated credentials and audit trail and can be revoked on its own. Calls are traced to a person, agent, server and model, with spend and token use by team, and Mint Guard screens for prompt injection and risky tool calls.
Mintive states SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA-aligned controls, EU and US data residency and a private tunnel for reaching internal servers. Pricing is not published. It suits engineering organizations rolling out coding agents widely that want governance from day one.
Traefik Hub MCP Gateway extends the Traefik Hub API Gateway, so API, AI and MCP traffic run through one binary. It acts as an OAuth resource server, validates JWTs and injects upstream API keys so clients never hold them.
Its policy model is the most granular on this list. Task-based access control evaluates the task, the tool and the request arguments, and denies anything no policy allows. List responses for tools, prompts and resources are filtered to what each caller may use. Optional content guards can mask or block PII, and session-aware load balancing keeps stateful MCP sessions pinned to the right backend. OpenTelemetry metrics and an append-only record of allow and deny decisions support audits.
Policies are managed as YAML through GitOps, and it runs on Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Nomad, VMs and air-gapped sites. It supports Streamable HTTP but not the older standalone SSE transport. Traefik offers a free trial and demo, with pricing on request.
How To Choose An MCP Gateway
Do You Need Open Source Or A Managed Service?
Open source gateways such as Docker MCP Gateway, Obot, agentgateway and ContextForge give you full control and no license cost, but your team owns upgrades, scaling and security patches. Managed products such as Composio, Mintive and Cloudflare remove that work and usually ship faster audit and SSO features. A common pattern is open source for developer laptops and CI, and a managed or enterprise product for production agents.
Where Will The Gateway Run?
Check deployment options before features. Regulated teams often need VPC, on premises or air-gapped support, which narrows the field to TrueFoundry, Traefik, Obot and the self-hostable open source projects. If you already standardize on Kubernetes Gateway API, agentgateway fits cleanly. If your company runs Kong or Cloudflare Zero Trust, adding MCP to the gateway you already operate is usually cheaper than adopting a new one.
How Does It Handle Authentication And Credentials?
A good mcp proxy validates the user’s identity once and then injects upstream credentials, so tokens never reach the model or the client. Ask whether the gateway supports per-user OAuth with automatic refresh, service accounts for unattended agents, and the MCP authorization spec. Also confirm it filters tools from discovery rather than only blocking calls, because agents choose tools based on what they can see.
What Visibility Do You Get?
Every model context protocol gateway on this list logs tool calls, but the detail varies. Look for logs that tie each call to a person, an agent and a server, plus OpenTelemetry export into the tools you already use. If cost matters, prefer gateways that track token use by team. For deeper tracing of agent behavior, pair the gateway with one of the observability tools for AI coding agents.
Is A Gateway Enough For Security?
A gateway enforces who can reach which tools, but it does not always detect poisoned tool descriptions or prompt injection hidden in tool output. Several products here add guardrails, yet many teams also run a dedicated scanner or runtime protection layer. Our guide to the top MCP security tools covers those options.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is An MCP Gateway?
An MCP gateway is a proxy that sits between AI clients and MCP servers. It gives agents one endpoint, applies authentication and access policy, injects credentials, and logs every tool call. It replaces the need to configure each server separately in every client.
Is An MCP Gateway The Same As An AI Gateway?
Not quite. An AI gateway mainly routes and governs calls to language models. An MCP gateway governs the tools agents use. Several products, including Kong, agentgateway, Obot and TrueFoundry, now handle both in one layer.
Are There Free MCP Gateways?
Yes. Docker MCP Gateway, Obot Community, agentgateway, IBM ContextForge and Microsoft’s open source MCP Gateway for Kubernetes are free to run. Composio and TrueFoundry have free tiers, and Cloudflare One is free for up to 50 users.
Do MCP Gateways Work With Claude, Cursor And Other Clients?
Generally yes. Gateways expose a standard MCP endpoint, so any client that supports remote MCP servers can connect. Check transport support, since some gateways only accept Streamable HTTP, and confirm support for the 2026-07-28 spec revision if your clients use it.
Conclusion
The right MCP gateway depends on where your agents run and what you already operate. Developers should start with Docker MCP Gateway. Companies with an API platform team should look first at Kong or Traefik. Teams that want an open source internal platform will find Obot, agentgateway and ContextForge mature enough for production, while TrueFoundry, Cloudflare, Composio and Mintive trade some control for faster setup and built-in compliance.
Whichever you pick, treat the gateway as the start of MCP governance rather than the end. Pair it with clear server approval rules, good logging and a security layer that inspects what tools actually return. If you need outside help building that stack, see our list of AI agent development firms for enterprise solutions.
If you want to feature your company on this list, email us or submit a form in the Top Choices section. After a thorough assessment, we’ll decide whether it’s a valuable addition.
