What the checklist covers:
63
Criteria to evaluate an MCP gateway against, each with the exact question to ask
13
Areas, from MCP server hosting and registry to agents and enterprise needs
45
Criteria rated must have before an MCP gateway is ready for production
3
Priority levels: must have, nice to have, and depends on use case
Inside the checklist
Download the checklist to get:
A structured framework to compare MCP gateways and spot the gaps before you commit.
Download the Checklist✓
The full 63-point MCP gateway checklist
Every criterion grouped into 13 areas, with the question to put to each vendor.
✓
A priority rating for every criterion
Know which capabilities are must have, which are nice to have, and which depend on your use case.
✓
Security and access criteria for MCP
How to evaluate SSO, OAuth2, dynamic client registration, tool-level RBAC, and credential rotation.
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Criteria for the playground and agent registry
How to test tools safely, publish agents with guardrails bundled, and version them over time.
Why it matters
Why MCP Needs a Gateway
The Model Context Protocol made it easy for agents to call tools. That's also the problem. Every team spins up its own MCP servers, every agent connects to them directly, and each connection carries its own API keys or tokens. Platform and security teams lose sight of which tools exist, who can call them, and what those calls did.
An MCP gateway puts one control layer between agents and tools. It hosts and registers MCP servers, authenticates every user and agent through your identity provider, enforces RBAC down to individual tools, applies guardrails and rate limits, and traces every call for audit. But gateways differ a lot in how deep each of these goes.
One gateway between your agents and every MCP server, tool, and model they call.
How to use the checklist
Each of the 63 criteria names one capability, the question to put to a vendor, and a priority: must have, nice to have, or depends on use case. Score every MCP gateway on your shortlist against the same list, starting with the 45 must haves. The gaps show up before you commit.
Preview
Inside the MCP gateway checklist
A sample of the criteria in six of the 13 areas. The full checklist includes all 63, with priorities.
Hosting · 4 criteria
MCP server deployment and hosting
Containerized MCP servers deployed on Kubernetes or VMs
Zero-downtime rollouts with blue/green or canary deploys
+2 more criteria
Registry · 4 criteria
MCP registry
Self-service registration via UI, API, or GitOps
Support for HTTP and STDIO transports
+2 more criteria
Auth · 5 criteria
Authorization and authentication
SSO through Okta, Google Workspace, or Azure AD
Dynamic client registration with your identity provider
+3 more criteria
Playground · 8 criteria
Playground support
Tool access in the playground governed by registry RBAC
Code snippets for Python, Node.js, LangChain, and LangGraph
+6 more criteria
Security · 4 criteria
Guardrails and security
Detection of prompt injection, data exfiltration, and jailbreaks
MCP servers sandboxed with auth, RBAC, and network isolation
+2 more criteria
Observability · 6 criteria
Audit and observability
Audit logs for every prompt, tool call, and admin action
Export to OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Datadog, or Splunk
+4 more criteria
9.9
★★★★★
Highly rated on G2
Trusted by leading enterprises
Teams at NVIDIA, Merck, Synopsys, Siemens Healthineers, NetApp, and Zscaler trust TrueFoundry. Its AI Gateway brings models, MCP servers, and agents under one control layer, with reliability, observability, and security built in.
