MCP Gateway vs Merge Agent Handler

MCP Gateway 87

Local-package reading, as for graphicle and claude-mem, since the owner runs it. Official packages on crates.io (cargo install mcp-gateway), a Homebrew tap, release binaries and ghcr.io, with Rust 1.95 and macOS, Linux and Windows builds stated (20). A public CI workflow runs clippy with warnings as errors, the full test suite, fmt, cargo audit, secret scans and Helm smoke tests on pushes and pull requests, and the last eight runs on main passed by 26 October 2026 (25). Four open issues on GitHub on 2 November 2026, one a labelled bug filed by the maintainer, and the newest outside issue was answered the day it was opened. Closed issues couldn't be read (robots.txt), so the record is partial (18 of 25). Keep a Changelog with BREAKING entries and migration notes for 3.0 and 4.0 and an UPGRADING-4.0.md, but 3.3.0, which relicensed the code, has no changelog section, and 4.0.0 is dated 19 September there while only betas exist (9 of 15). Stable is 3.5.1, after two earlier majors; 4.0.0 is in beta (15). 20 + 25 + 18 + 9 + 15 = 87.

Merge Agent Handler 59

Read with the hosted lines. status.merge.dev lists Merge Agent Handler as its own component (20, per the 8 October check). On 1 November status.merge.dev answered robots.txt with HTTP 406 and an empty body, so the host is treated as blocked and its history since 8 October wasn't read. On 8 October the page showed 30 days of notices, with one incident in that time, on ADP syncing for the Unified API, and none on Agent Handler. The 60 days before that were not readable, so half marks, held per the 8 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). MCP tool calls are limited per Registered User and per organisation by the minute, with no figures published, as the FAQ still says on 1 November (3). Third-party limits return rate_limit_exceeded with advice to back off, the Free plan's limit returns 402 billing_limit_reached, the signup endpoint answers 429 with no Retry-After, and Registered User creation is idempotent on origin_user_id. No Retry-After and no idempotency key for tool calls were found (6). The pricing page lists custom SLAs on Enterprise with no published figure (5). The FAQ says Agent Handler is generally available, and since 23 October individual connectors can carry a Beta label that an admin setting turns on or off, which doesn't change the product's status (10).

MCP Gateway 30

Self-hosted rule, scored on the paid option because any company use needs a commercial licence, as gaia and screenpipe (also noncommercial licences) were read. No payment protocol (0). The standard commercial licence is a public flat EUR 500 a month per named project through GitHub Sponsors, plan-only pricing (10). Personal and noncommercial use is free with no card or account, but there is no free route or stated evaluation period for a company (10 of 20). It installs from Homebrew, crates.io or ghcr.io with no sign-up, and an agent with a shell can run the setup wizard, but buying the licence takes a person on GitHub Sponsors, as screenpipe's did (10 of 20). 0 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 30.

Merge Agent Handler 55

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public, $1,000 a month for 25,000 credits up to $3,200 for 100,000 (the upper steps per the 8 October check), at one credit per tool call. On 1 November the page says only that overages are billed at the end of the month, with no rate, so 15 of 20 (15). The Free plan gives 2,000 credits a month with no card (20). The docs and the OpenAPI file describe an unauthenticated POST /api/v1/agent/signup/ that returns a key, a tool pack and a registered user. We did not call it, so this rests on the documentation. A paid plan needs a person and a card (20).

MCP Gateway 90

4.0.0-beta.3 on 6 October 2026, 27 days before the check, and commits on main to 26 October (30). 4.0.0-beta.1 and beta.2 on 25 September and beta.3 on 6 October, plus 3.5.1 on 4 September, inside 90 days (20). The newest outside issue (#3953, 19 October) got a maintainer reply the same day and a follow-up on 28 October, four issues are open, and outside pull requests from four contributors were merged, per AUTHORSHIP.md. Closed issues and pull requests couldn't be read (robots.txt), so not sampled further (17 of 25). In the official MCP registry as io.github.MikkoParkkola/mcp-gateway under a GitHub namespace, latest 3.5.1, the current stable release (15). Dependabot merges, cargo audit in CI and current tokio and jsonschema, less 2 because the npm wrapper installs a downloaded binary without checking its checksum (8 of 10). 30 + 20 + 17 + 15 + 8 = 90.

Merge Agent Handler 69

Agent Handler changelog entries on 16, 23 and 30 October 2026 (30). Agent Handler entries on 18 September, 25 September, 2 October and 16, 23 and 30 October, each listing new connectors and tool changes (20). A closed service with a weekly changelog, a Discord community on Free, email support on Pro and tickets from the dashboard. The issue tracker linked from PyPI answered 404 on 8 October (10). No Merge entry in the official MCP registry on 1 November (searched for merge, dev.merge, agent-handler and merge-api) and there is no Agent Handler SDK. The CLI was current at 0.5.0 (5 October) per the 8 October check; PyPI didn't resolve from our reader on 1 November, and the changelog alone now carries the two release lines (5). The CLI supports Python 3.10 to 3.13 and is classified Beta. Its repository isn't public, so CI was not checked (4).

MCP Gateway 60

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, source-available and not OSI, with affirmative SPDX headers on every first-party file and LICENSES.md, NOTICE.md and COMMERCIAL.md that agree with each other and say what the earlier MIT grants still cover. Read as gaia's PolyForm source was (20 of 30). Self-hosted, so data stays where the owner runs it; secrets go to the OS keychain, files holding them are 0600 on Unix, and SECURITY.md states the Windows gap. There is no privacy statement (20 of 30). Deprecation notices with versions for the MIT 3.0.0 to 3.2.1 releases on crates.io and npm, upgrade guides for 3.0 and 4.0 and a stated support window of the latest release only, but the 3.3.0 relicence has no changelog entry, and AUTHORSHIP.md says the licensing scheme still awaits an IP lawyer's sign-off (9 of 20). No telemetry, analytics or update check found in the source; Prometheus metrics stay local behind a feature flag, and the plugin marketplace host is contacted only by plugin commands. The docs state nothing either way (15 of 20). 20 + 20 + 9 + 15 = 64.

Merge Agent Handler 72

The editorial half. Closed service under a Master Services Agreement that names Merge API, Inc., a Delaware corporation, with California law (15). The MSA says Merge will not use Customer Data to train, fine-tune or improve any AI, and the privacy policy says it doesn't train generalised models on personal information. Logs are kept 90 days by default, a deleted Registered User's records go with it, and a closed account is purged after 30 days. Retention of stored credentials for the life of an account is left to the agreement and the DPA (22). No deprecation policy or dated sunset notices were found. The agreement can change on 30 days' notice or on continued use (4). The sub-processor list, updated 4 May 2026, gives each processor's location and includes Anthropic, OpenAI and AWS Bedrock. Standard plans are hosted on AWS US-East (17).

MCP Gateway 77

MCP context cost. Nine to 17 meta-tools, 11 in the default admin set, whatever the number of backends, so 15 for 11 to 30 tools, plus 10 back for Code Mode's two tools, exposed_meta_tools and surfaced tools (25). The project's own live run of 4 September 2026 found the meta path used 1.2 to 16.1 per cent more input tokens and one extra turn on every task, which the README states; the context saving is a schema-size saving, so less 5 (20 of 25). gateway_search_tools and gateway_search take limit, gateway_search has L0, L1 and L2 detail tiers, gateway_list_tools filters by server and role, and backend responses can be shaped with transform chains (17 of 20). Did-you-mean on tool names, LLM-readable output-schema failures, circuit-breaker and disabled status in gateway_list_servers, and rate-limited calls excluded from the kill budgets (16 of 20). Meta-tools carry readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint and openWorldHint; destructive meta-tools ask through elicitation, which the source calls a courtesy rather than a control; an idempotency guard exists per ADR-012 (16 of 20). One required argument for search and two for invoke; Rust only, no SDK applies, and setup takes a wizard and a config file (8 of 15). 20 + 17 + 16 + 16 + 8 = 77.

Merge Agent Handler 68

The catalogue is large (Slack alone lists 50 tools), which scores 5, plus 10 for Tool Packs with per-tool selection, the connectors URL scope, the search_tools meta-tool and a pin that drops structuredContent (15). tools/list pages by 100 with ?paginated=true, and logs and lists take cursors and filters. Controls on tool output size were not found (16). Errors carry an error_type, data.reauth_reason, a named guardrail on a block and a request id that matches the log row (17). The connectors endpoint returns annotation hints (read only, destructive) per tool. We could not confirm they appear in tools/list, and tool calls take no idempotency key (10). There is no Agent Handler SDK. Clients use the MCP SDKs or the Python CLI, and agent signup returns the ids a first call needs (10).

MCP Gateway 75

Every meta-tool declares a typed JSON Schema input with required fields, read from src/gateway/meta_mcp_tool_defs.rs, and server.json is published to the official registry. gateway_invoke passes backend arguments as an open object by design (22 of 25). llms.txt at the repository root, and Markdown docs in the tree (10). Descriptions say what each tool does and when (search first, then invoke; kill and revive say what they change for every session), and the initialize preamble names the discovery order. Backend tool descriptions come from the user's servers and aren't the gateway's (14 of 20). gateway_list_tools has an enum on role, gateway_search caps limit at 25 and detail is an enum, nonce has length bounds; limit on gateway_search_tools has no maximum (11 of 15). README, QUICKSTART, an annotated gateway-full.yaml and a troubleshooting section; errors are described in prose, with did-you-mean suggestions, and there is no error reference (8 of 15). Semver over the CLI and config file, stated in the README, and a long changelog, less for the missing 3.3.0 section and the misdated 1.0.0 and 2.0.0 entries (10 of 15). 22 + 10 + 14 + 11 + 8 + 10 = 75.

Merge Agent Handler 80

OpenAPI 3.1 file with 69 operations, and connector tools carry input_schema and, where it resolves, output_schema (25). llms.txt for the product and a Markdown twin of every page. The OpenAPI link in llms.txt answered 404 and the working file is agent-handler-api.json (10). Connector pages give one line per tool, such as 'List all channels in the workspace', with no guidance on when not to use a tool. Tool Packs can override descriptions (12). We could not read live tool schemas without an account. The REST schema types its parameters and has 30 enum uses, while most operations document only a 200 response (10). MCP and curl examples per client and a troubleshooting catalogue with error types and six reauth_reason causes (10). The API sits under /api/v1/, the MCP protocol revision can be pinned, and the changelog is weekly and dated. No deprecation notices found (13).