# Clerk MCP server vs Vercel Connect (slim)

> 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.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect.md (~4,700 tokens) · this version ~2,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/clerk-mcp-vs-vercel-connect
- 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)

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: C 61.9, rank #586 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/clerk-mcp.min.md
- Vercel Connect: BB 70.8, rank #186 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vercel-connect.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. Also No incidents deducted, where Vercel Connect loses 3 points for them.
- Vercel Connect, 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 Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | Clerk MCP server | Vercel Connect |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 65 | 73 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 65 | 84 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 63 | 75 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 65 | 83 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 77 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 57 | 77 |

| Fact (where they differ) | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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) |

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).)