# Clerk MCP server vs Descope Agentic Identity Hub (slim)

> Descope Agentic Identity Hub scores 78.1 (A) to Clerk's 61.9 (C) for oauth for agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-descope-agentic-identity.md (~4,700 tokens) · this version ~2,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-descope-agentic-identity.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-descope-agentic-identity
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Descope Agentic Identity Hub scores 78.1 (A) on agent readiness against Clerk MCP server's 61.9 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do oauth for agents.

- Clerk MCP server: C 61.9, rank #586 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clerk-mcp.min.md
- Descope Agentic Identity Hub: A 78.1, rank #25 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/descope-agentic-identity.min.md
- Clerk MCP server, good for Developers building on Clerk who want a coding agent to set up applications, users, domains and production instances.
- Descope Agentic Identity Hub, good for A team that wants one vendor for both directions, holding users' third-party tokens and acting as the authorisation server for its own MCP server, with policy per agent. Ahead on Reliability, 100 against 65; Schema & documentation, 78 against 65; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 63; Security & auth, 86 against 65; Transparency & trust, 68 against 57. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Clerk MCP server | Descope Agentic Identity Hub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 65 | 100 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 78 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 63 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 65 | 86 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 77 | 74 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 57 | 68 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Clerk MCP server | Descope Agentic Identity Hub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Clerk, Inc. | Descope |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.clerk.com/mcp` | `https://api.descope.com` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Licence | none | MIT (SDKs), platform closed |
| Tools exposed | 14 | none |
| MCP registry | `io.github.clerk/mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-22 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2026-02-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 67 stars, 354k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.1/5 (8) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Descope Agentic Identity Hub +35: Clerk MCP server 65 (Graded as a hosted service. incident.io status page at status.clerk.com with components for authentication, sessions, webhooks and SCIM, but none for the MCP server (15). The feed shows several resolved incidents since August (an upstream SMS issue on 29 October, Apple sign-in for development instances, an incident across all components on 3 November, resolved), none read as a long core outage (20). Backend API limits published with numbers (1,000 requests per 10 seconds in production), not for the MCP server itself (10 of 15). 429 with Retry-After documented, no idempotency guidance for writes (10 of 15). No SLA found; Business support has 'No response-time SLA' (0). The MCP server isn't labelled beta (10). 15 + 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 65.); Descope Agentic Identity Hub 100 (Instatus page at descopestatus.com with per-component history, including the public API (20). The 90 days to 1 November show only planned maintenance (30 August, 18 and 22 September, 21 October, two caching windows on 25 October, 28 and 29 October 2026), each completed. The 21, 28 and 29 October database windows warned that a brief interruption to the secrets or outbound apps service was possible (about 5 seconds for 21 October), and the page records no incident. Every API region shows 100.0 per cent uptime for September, October and November (30). Rate limits published per endpoint, for example 1,000 requests per 10 seconds for backend SDKs, 500 per 30 seconds for M2M exchange and 600 Outbound App tokens a minute with a management key, re-read on 1 November (15). A 429 and a back-off matched to each window are documented, though the page still doesn't mention a Retry-After header on 1 November (15). A published SLA of 99.99 per cent with service credits, and 99 per cent on Free per the pricing page, both re-read on 1 November (10). The token and consent APIs aren't marked preview, and only the Descope Agent Gateway is labelled early access, re-read on 1 November (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 100.)
- Security & auth, Descope Agentic Identity Hub +21: Clerk MCP server 65 (OAuth with a published scope table and one workspace per connection (30). Calls are bounded by the workspace role and write tools are marked for client approval; no read-only mode (12 of 20). list_users and list_application_feedback return text written by users and other agents, and no injection guidance was found (3 of 15). No audit log of MCP calls found (0). security.txt with a vulnerability disclosure policy and safe harbour, SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA since May 2022, penetration testing and published postmortems (20). 30 + 12 + 3 + 0 + 20 = 65.); Descope Agentic Identity Hub 86 (An agent signs in as its own OAuth client by client credentials, device code, CIBA or RFC 7523 JWT bearer, and Policies limit which tokens it can fetch, while a management key bypasses Policies and the SDK makes you opt in to use one, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (28). Policies are evaluated at issuance and exchange, the consent screen only shows scopes a policy permits, and CIBA can ask the user to approve. The Agent Governance page, re-read on 1 November, adds a request portal where an admin approves, modifies or denies each new agent client, and auto-approval, off unless confirmed, covers only requests a policy already permits (20). The API returns tokens, not untrusted content (10). Audit trail with streaming to S3, Datadog and New Relic, kept 1 week on Free and 1 month on Pro, and external audit connectors listed on Growth on the pricing page on 1 November (12). SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP High, CSA STAR Level 2 and PCI DSS claimed, external penetration tests and a vulnerability disclosure policy, per the 4 October check, but /.well-known/security.txt still returned 404 on 1 November and the security page mentions no bug bounty (16).)
- Agent ergonomics, Descope Agentic Identity Hub +17: Clerk MCP server 63 (14 tools, two of them for sending feedback to Clerk (15). list_users takes filters; no paging documented (10 of 20). The FAQ explains permission errors and how to fix them (8 of 20). 'Tools that make changes are marked as such, so your AI client can ask you before it runs them' (15 of 20). Official SDKs in many languages and a CLI (15). 15 + 10 + 8 + 15 + 15 = 63.); Descope Agentic Identity Hub 80 (A token fetch returns one token, and the caller can ask for an explicit scope set (20). Tokens are fetched per app, user or tenant, and the management search endpoints page, but there's no list of a user's connections in the agent SDK (15). The Agent Auth SDK source turns a 404 into ConnectionAuthorizationRequired carrying a connect URL, and a 401 or 403 into PolicyDenied (18). Fetching the latest token is safe to repeat and forceRefresh is opt-in, but token deletion can't be undone and has no confirmation (12). Backend SDKs in several languages, with node-sdk 2.20.0 (19 October) and the descope Python package 2.16.1 (22 October) tagged, and few required fields. The Agent Auth SDK in Python and TypeScript had to be installed from GitHub on 17 October, since neither package was on npm or PyPI then, per the 17 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15).)
- Schema & documentation, Descope Agentic Identity Hub +13: Clerk MCP server 65 (Typed JSON Schema by protocol, not read because every tool needs sign-in (15 of 25). llms.txt and a .md copy of every docs page (10). The docs table says what each of the 14 tools is for (12 of 20). Input typing not verifiable without a session (5 of 15). Example prompts and an FAQ on permission errors (8 of 15). Dated public changelog with an MCP entry on 15 October 2026 (15). 15 + 10 + 12 + 5 + 8 + 15 = 65.); Descope Agentic Identity Hub 78 (An OpenAPI 3.0 file at docs.descope.com/examples/Descope_API.yaml, with reference pages for each Outbound App token endpoint (25). llms.txt and Markdown docs, re-read on 1 November (10). The docs explain when to fetch a user token, a tenant token or a Resource token and why an agent should sign in as its own client, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). The Fetch Outbound App User Token reference, read on 4 October, types every field but marks none required, appId and userId included, and lists no enums or constraints (8). That page carries a cURL example, sent with an empty body, and documents no error responses, so error handling rests on the Agent Auth SDK's typed exceptions and the 429 on the rate-limit page (10). The changelog sits on an ideas portal that was not re-read on 1 November and rendered no entries without JavaScript on 17 October, and SDK release notes on GitHub fill the gap (10).)
- Transparency & trust, Descope Agentic Identity Hub +11: Clerk MCP server 57 (Closed service under terms naming Clerk, Inc., last updated 1 October 2026 (15). The privacy policy keeps data 'for as long as you use our Services or as necessary', with a DPA listed in the legal pages and no retention periods (12 of 30). No deprecation policy for the MCP server found (5 of 20). Subprocessors referenced through the DPA, list not read (8 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 8 = 40.); Descope Agentic Identity Hub 68 (Closed platform under terms (last update 24 February 2026, re-read on 1 November) that name a Descope contracting entity in the US, Israel or the UK by customer location, with MIT SDKs (15). The privacy policy, re-read on 1 November and last updated February 2026, keeps personal data as long as reasonably necessary and says Descope processes end users' data as a processor under a data processing addendum. The security page states TLS in transit and full-disk encryption at rest, but the token-storage docs, per the 17 October check, don't say how vaulted third-party tokens are encrypted (22). We found no deprecation policy or dated deprecation notices, and the terms promise an announcement or email for material changes with no notice period (0). Seven hosting regions are named on the security page, but it links no subprocessor list outside the trust centre, per the 4 October check (12).)