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Cerbos vs Mcp

Mcp scores higher on the AgentReady, 58/100 against 46/100. They differ on 9 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

Cerbos. Authorization management platform for applications, APIs, AI agents, MCP servers, services, and workloads.

Mcp. MCP.so is a discovery platform for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, connecting AI apps to tools, data, and automated workflows.

Where Cerbos is ahead

Cerbos passes public docs discoverable, and Mcp does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds adopt: copyable quickstart. Mcp misses it.

Where Mcp is ahead

Mcp passes clear canonical domain, and Cerbos does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: pricing understandable. Cerbos misses it.

And on adopt, self-service signup, free trial or free allowance and cli available. Cerbos misses those.

Finally, on operate, retry behavior documented and agent compatibility verified. Cerbos misses those.

What neither does

Both fail structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Cerbos leads 93 to 87. Cerbos misses clear canonical domain; Mcp misses public docs discoverable.

Understand. Mcp leads 23 to 15. Cerbos misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, pricing understandable, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Mcp misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. Mcp leads 60 to 40. Cerbos misses self-service signup, no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, free trial or free allowance, fast time to first request, cli available; Mcp misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, fast time to first request, copyable quickstart.

Operate is whether an agent can run against it in production and recover when a call fails. Mcp leads 61 to 35. Cerbos misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified; Mcp misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable.

Pricing

Cerbos does not publish a machine-readable starting price. Mcp starts at $399/mo with no free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Mcp clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: Cerbos and Mcp. Alternatives to each: Cerbos, Mcp.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["cerbos", "mcp"]}