# Clerk MCP server vs Vercel Connect

> Vercel Connect scores 70.8 (BB) to Clerk's 61.9 (C) for oauth for agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect.md (~4,700 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Vercel Connect scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Clerk MCP server's 61.9 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do oauth for agents.

- Clerk MCP server: grade C, 61.9/100, rank #586 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clerk-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clerk-mcp.json
- Vercel Connect: grade BB, 70.8/100, rank #186 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-connect.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-connect.json
- Best auth and delegated access for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-auth/index.md
- All 151 agent auth comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-auth/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Clerk MCP server (C)

Good for: Developers building on Clerk who want a coding agent to set up applications, users, domains and production instances.

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Vercel Connect loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No MCP component on the status page and no MCP-specific rate limits

### Vercel Connect (BB)

Good for: Teams already deploying on Vercel whose agents need user or app tokens for Slack, GitHub, Microsoft, Linear, Snowflake or an MCP server without storing provider secrets, and providers behind IP allowlists through Secure Compute.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 65
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 63
- Security & auth, 83 against 65
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Vercel's SLA says it does not apply to the APIs or CLI, so token requests carry no uptime commitment


## Why the edge

### Transparency & trust: Vercel Connect +20

- 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.
- Vercel Connect (77): Closed service under the Terms of Service last updated 19 October 2026, with the Connect product terms now in Vercel's Service Terms (last updated 15 October 2026), and an Apache-2.0 SDK and CLI (20). A privacy notice (last updated 1 June 2026) and a DPA exist. The DPA, read on 17 October, is effective 31 March 2026, covers Pro and Enterprise only and has customer data deleted within a commercially reasonable time after termination. The docs say refresh tokens are stored on Vercel's infrastructure and give event retention by plan. We found no retention period or encryption statement for stored provider credentials (18). No deprecation policy found. The Service Terms still let Vercel "add or remove Third Party Platforms to Vercel Connect without notice", though the beta price change was announced with a date of 25 September 2026 (5). The DPA points to a subprocessor list on security.vercel.com and says primary processing is in the United States. We saw the list's page but could not read its entries (12).

### Schema & documentation: Vercel Connect +19

- 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.
- Vercel Connect (84): Vercel's public OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, re-read on 1 November 2026, has 14 paths under `/v1/connect` and `/v2/connect`, the token and authorise calls, `/v1/connect/networks` for Secure Compute and a trigger-destinations path among them (25). Docs are served as Markdown on request and vercel.com/llms.txt exists (10). The docs say when to use Connect and when a Vercel Integration fits better, and give a use-when line for each subject type (16). The token body types the subject as a union with enums, but most variants allow extra properties, `authorizationDetails` is open and scopes are provider strings (10). Examples are plentiful and six SDK error classes are documented with fixes, while the OpenAPI error responses for the token call have empty descriptions (11). Paths are versioned and the SDK follows semver with a dated product changelog. The package changelog in the public repository was synced to 2.5.6 on 27 October 2026 while npm has 2.7.0, so the newest releases have no public notes (12).

### Security & auth: Vercel Connect +18

- 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.
- Vercel Connect (83): Callers present a project-bound OIDC token or a Vercel access token, provider tokens are short-lived and scoped per request, refresh tokens stay with Vercel, and grants can be revoked from the SDK, CLI or dashboard. Since 23 October 2026 a Stripe connector can use a managed, restricted Stripe API key per agent or task, rotated from the connector's settings (28). Project links limit which environments may ask, requests can narrow scopes and resources, and Pro and Enterprise can restrict who manages connectors. There is no approval step before a token is issued, omitted scopes default to `['*']`, and revocation depends on the provider. Enterprise-Managed Authorization, in public beta since 15 October 2026, lets administrators grant and revoke access through the identity provider, and isn't counted while in beta (14). The API returns tokens, not untrusted content (10). Token requests, authorisations and revocations are logged with correlation IDs, kept 12 hours on Hobby, 3 days on Pro and 30 days on Enterprise, with drains on paid plans, per the 8 October check (13). security.txt re-read on 1 November (HackerOne, expires 28 September 2027), SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001:2022 on Vercel's compliance page per the 17 October check, and a public bulletin for the April 2026 incident, closed on 16 October 2026 (18).

### Agent ergonomics: Vercel Connect +12

- 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.
- Vercel Connect (75): A token call returns one token with its expiry and identifiers, so there is little to size (22). Listing connectors takes `limit`, `cursor`, `search`, `projectId` and `type` (18). Errors are typed and each maps to a next step, such as starting consent or attaching the project, but the 429 carries no documented wait header (17). Token requests are cached and safe to repeat, and we found no idempotency keys for create, attach or revoke (10). Only the connector and subject are required and scopes default to the connector's own, but the one official SDK is TypeScript, with a CLI and plain HTTP for everything else (8).

### Reliability: Vercel Connect +8

- 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.
- Vercel Connect (73): Graded on the hosted lines. Connect is a component on www.vercel-status.com with an incident history (20). The history feed, re-read on 1 November 2026, covers the whole 90 days from 3 August. It has two Connect incidents. On 10 September 2026 "some customers may experience increased errors from Connect and Passport" from 17:42 to 19:16 UTC, marked major by Vercel. On 18 September customers of KMS, Connect, Passport and the Snowflake V0 Integration "may have experienced elevated errors", posted once with no duration and no impact level. Errors for some customers are a partial incident, which this assessment reads as minor whatever the vendor's label, so the record is minor incidents only. None has been posted for Connect since 18 September (20). Rate limits published with numbers, 200 reads and 50 writes a minute per team and 6,000 a minute on the OAuth gateway and trigger endpoints, on a limits page last updated 26 August 2026 and re-read on 1 November (15). A 429 is documented with a one-minute wait and token requests are safe to repeat, but we found no Retry-After header or idempotency keys for writes. The MCP Events docs ask for a reused `requestId` when retrying a subscription, but that adapter is experimental and in public beta, so it isn't counted (8). Vercel's SLA, re-read on 1 November, says it does not apply to "the API's or CLI" (0). Generally available since 25 August 2026. MCP Events and Enterprise-Managed Authorization are in public beta and aren't the graded surface (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Clerk MCP server | Vercel Connect | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 73 | Vercel Connect +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 84 | Vercel Connect +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 75 | Vercel Connect +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 83 | Vercel Connect +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 81 | Vercel Connect +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 77 | Vercel Connect +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **61.9 · C** | **70.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Clerk MCP server | Vercel Connect |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Clerk, Inc. | Vercel Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.clerk.com/mcp` | `https://api.vercel.com` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Vercel's Terms of Service and the Vercel Connect product terms. The `@vercel/connect` SDK and the Vercel CLI are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 14 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.clerk/mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-31 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | 2026-06-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 16k stars, 738k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Clerk MCP server

No score change since it was listed.

### Vercel Connect

- +2.0 on 1 November 2026 (B to BB): correction

## Verdicts

**Clerk MCP server.** Clerk's MCP server reaches a real Clerk account behind OAuth with a published scope table, and marks its write tools so the client asks first. Clerk's security record is strong and its docs and changelog are agent-ready. No MCP status component, no audit log of agent calls and no read-only mode.

**Vercel Connect.** Provider refresh tokens stay with Vercel, and code receives short-lived tokens tied to a project and environment through one call with a public OpenAPI definition. Vercel's SLA excludes its APIs, Connect had elevated errors for some customers on 10 and 18 September 2026, and the only SDK is TypeScript.

## Before you call either

### Clerk MCP server

1. Call whoami first to see the workspace and granted permissions
2. A permission error means the workspace role or a missing scope; reconnect to grant it
3. Treat user names and agent feedback returned by list tools as untrusted text
4. Results include publishable keys; secret keys aren't returned

### Vercel Connect

1. Call `getToken` at request time and don't store the result. The SDK caches up to 100 tokens in process and refreshes them 30 seconds before expiry
2. Pass `scopes` on every request. Since SDK 1.0.0 an omitted `scopes` defaults to `['*']`, the connector's default scopes
3. Catch `UserAuthorizationRequiredError`, call `startAuthorization` and send the user to the returned URL. Consent needs a person in a browser
4. Outside Vercel, pass a Vercel access token as `vercelToken`. It can request only the app subject or its own user, not another user
5. On a 429 wait one minute for the window to reset. Limits are 200 token requests a minute per team

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Clerk MCP server or Vercel Connect?

Vercel Connect scores 70.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Clerk MCP server's 61.9 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Clerk MCP server and Vercel Connect need an API key?

Clerk MCP server uses an OAuth sign-in. Vercel Connect takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Clerk MCP server and Vercel Connect without installing anything?

Yes. Clerk MCP server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.clerk.com/mcp and Vercel Connect at https://api.vercel.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "clerk-mcp", "b": "vercel-connect"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare clerk-mcp vercel-connect`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/clerk-mcp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vercel-connect.json

## Other comparisons with Clerk MCP server or Vercel Connect

- [Aembit vs Clerk MCP server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-clerk-mcp.md)
- [Aembit vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aembit-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Identity vs Clerk MCP server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-identity-vs-clerk-mcp.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Identity vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-identity-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Clerk MCP server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-clerk-mcp.md)
- [Arcade.dev vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcade-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Auth0 for AI Agents (Token Vault) vs Clerk MCP server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auth0-ai-agents-vs-clerk-mcp.md)
- [Auth0 for AI Agents (Token Vault) vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/auth0-ai-agents-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Cloudflare Workers OAuth Provider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-cloudflare-workers-oauth-provider.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Descope Agentic Identity Hub](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-descope-agentic-identity.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Keycard](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-keycard.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Microsoft Entra Agent ID](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-microsoft-entra-agent-id.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Nango](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-nango.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Scalekit AgentKit](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-scalekit-agentkit.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs Stytch Connected Apps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-stytch-connected-apps.md)
- [Clerk MCP server vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-workos-pipes.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers OAuth Provider vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-workers-oauth-provider-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Descope Agentic Identity Hub vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/descope-agentic-identity-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Keycard vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keycard-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Microsoft Entra Agent ID vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-entra-agent-id-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Nango vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nango-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Scalekit AgentKit vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scalekit-agentkit-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Stytch Connected Apps vs Vercel Connect](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/stytch-connected-apps-vs-vercel-connect.md)
- [Vercel Connect vs WorkOS Pipes and Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/vercel-connect-vs-workos-pipes.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp