Mcp alternatives
The highest-scoring alternative to Mcp is Permit.io at 79/100 on the AgentReady, against 58/100 for Mcp.
All scored in Authentication & Identity.
| Score | Alternative | Compare |
|---|---|---|
| 79 | Permit.io | - |
| 74 | Supabase | - |
| 65 | Scalekit | - |
| 65 | Stripe | - |
| 64 | Speakeasy | - |
| 63 | Auth0 | - |
| 61 | Descope | - |
| 61 | WorkOS | - |
| 59 | Propelauth | - |
| 58 | Logto | - |
| 57 | Better Auth | - |
| 57 | Frontegg | - |
| 56 | Unkey | - |
| 55 | Ory | - |
| 54 | Kinde | - |
| 54 | Nebius | - |
| 54 | SuperTokens | - |
| 52 | Bump | - |
| 51 | Stytch | - |
| 48 | Clerk | - |
| 48 | Hanko | - |
| 48 | Stoplight | - |
| 47 | Twilio | - |
| 46 | Cerbos | - |
| 41 | - |
What Permit.io does that Mcp does not
Permit.io passes public docs discoverable, structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, copyable quickstart, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, and Mcp fails them. That is the whole of the gap between the two scores, so if none of those matter to your agent the ranking above overstates the difference.
Why people look for an alternative
Mcp fails public docs discoverable, structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable. Each one is a place an unattended run stops, which is usually what sends someone looking in the first place.
Where Mcp loses the points
| Pillar | Mcp | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Discover | 87 | Can an agent find it at all: sitemap, robots, structured data. |
| Understand | 23 | Is there a spec, an llms.txt, a machine-readable description. |
| Adopt | 60 | Signup, keys, SDKs, and whether a human has to be involved. |
| Operate | 61 | Rate-limit headers, errors, status, and behaviour under load. |
Mcp is weakest on understand at 23/100. Without a spec an agent has to guess at endpoints, and it guesses wrong. If that is the part your agent depends on, take the ranking above seriously; if it is not, Mcp may still be the right pick.
What an agent runs into with Mcp
These are the findings from the last audit on 2026-09-01. Each one is a place unattended software stops, which is the practical reason to look at the list above.
- Make docs reachable without auth or navigation gymnastics.
- Publish an OpenAPI spec so agents can generate a client.
- Flesh out the OpenAPI: paths, schemas, and descriptions.
- Document error responses as an enum in your OpenAPI.
- Let agents create API keys programmatically.
- Return X-RateLimit / Retry-After headers so agents pace themselves.
- Add request examples to your API reference.
- Add response examples to your API reference.
What this category actually supports
Across the 26 products scored in Authentication & Identity, authenticate users is offered by 69%, social / oauth login is offered by 54%, enterprise sso is offered by 50%, manage orgs & roles is offered by 38%. Anything under half is a gap you should expect to fill yourself whichever one you pick.
An agent can get this list directly: resolve("alternative to Mcp") over the MCP server, or GET /v1/categories/auth.