Kestra vs Paragon ActionKit + MCP

Kestra

Kestra's open-source edition has a 216-operation OpenAPI spec, Markdown docs for agents and weekly patch releases on two long-term support lines. Its only credential is one basic-auth username and password with full access, and five critical advisories were published between March and September 2026, all fixed.

Paragon ActionKit + MCP

Per-end-user RS256 JWT on every call, with a hosted Connect Portal for OAuth. No published prices and no self-serve paid plan.

Kestra

1. Run 2.0.5 or 1.3.42 or later. Earlier builds carry unauthenticated remote code execution advisories fixed in 1.3.38 and 2.0.3
2. Set kestra.server.basic-auth in the config file before first start. Without it the setup page is open to anyone who reaches the port
3. Put the tenant in the path. Open-source instances use main, as in /api/v1/main/executions/{namespace}/{id}
4. Send flow inputs as multipart form fields, and add wait=true to get the finished execution in the same call
5. Keep port 8081 off any shared network. The management endpoints there skip the API's basic auth

Paragon ActionKit + MCP

1. Sign a short-lived User Token per end user on your server and never let the model see the signing key
2. Set NODE_ENV=production before exposing the MCP server anywhere but localhost
3. Fetch the tool list once per session with categories set, and cache it
4. Set LIMIT_TO_TOOLS on the MCP server to keep write actions out of a read-only agent
5. Proxy API requests count as tasks, so prefer ActionKit tools for routine actions