What each is for, where agentgateway is strong, and how the two differ, capability by capability.
Linux Foundation (created by Solo.io) · Based on the vendor's public documentation, last reviewed .
agentgateway
agentgateway is an open-source proxy for model, MCP and A2A traffic, hosted by the Linux Foundation. It authorizes MCP tools with CEL rules, accepts SPIFFE identities and exchanges tokens for backend credentials.
Open source (Apache 2.0). Runs as a standalone binary, in Docker, or on Kubernetes, where it implements the Gateway API. Solo.io sells a commercial distribution, Solo Enterprise for agentgateway.
Vekri
Runtime authorization for AI agents. Vekri Gateway checks every tool call against a verified identity, a task scope and Cedar policy; privileged writes wait for a person's approval of the exact operation; a broker executes with credentials the agent never sees.
In Vekri's cloud, or self-hosted in your Kubernetes cluster with no connection to Vekri.
Side by side
| Capability | What it means | Vekri | agentgateway |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decides each tool call inline | Every agent tool call is allowed or denied before it reaches the protected system. | Yes Vekri Gateway decides every MCP tool call sent through it before the broker executes it; a denied call never reaches the system. It is a boundary only when it is the only path to that system. | Documented With an MCP authorization policy, calls to tools the caller may not use are rejected at the gateway, and those tools are hidden from tool lists. [1] |
| Verified workload identity | An agent running as a workload proves who it is with a credential the platform issued, not a shared key. | Yes Kubernetes projected service-account tokens, verified with TokenReview before Vekri issues a short-lived token for the run; every call is then authenticated. SPIFFE X.509-SVIDs from a configured trust bundle (no Workload API yet). | Documented Clients can authenticate with mTLS, and rules can match the SPIFFE ID of the client certificate. Solo Enterprise adds on-behalf-of tokens that combine a user's token with a Kubernetes service-account token or SPIFFE ID. [3] [4] [11] |
| Employee agents use company SSO | Agents that employees run sign in as that employee, through the company identity provider. | Yes Vekri is the MCP authorization server for Claude Code and federates to your OpenID Connect provider. SAML sign-in is not available yet. | Documented agentgateway runs the MCP OAuth flow in front of MCP servers and validates the JWTs that the organization's identity provider issues. [5] |
| Task-scoped permissions from the server | What an agent may do is set per task by the server, not by the agent or its prompt. | Yes A run scope for workloads, or a protected access assignment for employees. The effective permission is always an intersection, never a widening. | Not in public docs Rules match the caller's identity and the tool. A scope issued by the server for each task is not described in the public documentation. [1] |
| Policy as code, deny by default | Decisions come from versioned policy, and anything not allowed is refused. | Yes Cedar over typed operations. Unknown operations and evaluation errors are denied, and a revision can be simulated before it is published. | Partly CEL rules on tool names, JWT claims and connection identity. All tool access is allowed until a policy is set; once an Allow rule exists, calls that match none are denied. [1] [2] |
| Approval of the exact operation | A person approves one specific operation, and the approval cannot be reused for another. | Yes Privileged writes wait for another person to approve that operation, bound to its digest, short-lived and single use, with separation of duties. | Not in public docs Approval of an individual tool call by a person is not described in the public documentation. |
| Agent never holds backend credentials | Secrets for the protected system stay out of the agent's reach. | Yes A broker executes with narrowly scoped Kubernetes or GitHub App credentials. Incoming tokens are never forwarded. | Documented The gateway can attach static keys, cloud provider credentials or tokens from OAuth token exchange, so the calling agent never handles a backend credential. Passing the client's own credential through is also an option. [6] [7] |
| Audit evidence of decision and outcome | Each call leaves a durable record of what was decided and what happened. | Yes Intent is recorded durably before execution and the outcome after; an uncertain outcome is never retried blindly. | Documented Each MCP request is logged with its method, target and tool name; arguments and results can be added with an access-log policy. Traces go to OpenTelemetry. [8] |
| AI agents on workstations | Finds AI coding agents and other AI applications on employee devices, and watches or controls what they do there. | Partly Vekri Endpoint discovers coding agents, desktop and IDE AI apps, local models and their MCP servers on macOS and Linux, and its local MCP gateway decides each MCP tool call sent through it (Claude Code verified connecting; tool calls verified with an MCP client library). On macOS, a network gateway mediates MCP requests to approved remote servers, and agent control stops AI agents the organization has not allowed. Hooks observe built-in tools without blocking them; Windows is not supported. | Not in public docs Discovering coding agents on employee devices is not described in the public documentation. |
| Prompt and output inspection | Detects prompt injection or sensitive data in what models read and write. | Partly Tool results on Vekri Gateway and the local MCP gateway are inspected for prompt injection before the agent reads them; sensitive-data categories are detected on the device, off by default. Browsers and file uploads are not inspected. | Documented Prompt guards check model requests and responses with regex and PII patterns, OpenAI moderation, Bedrock Guardrails, Model Armor or a webhook. MCP calls can go to an external guardrail server that inspects, rewrites or denies them. [9] [10] |
| Systems covered | Which systems, platforms or agents the product works with. | Kubernetes and GitHub, with GitLab, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Slack, Jira, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, monday.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk, Freshdesk and custom OpenAPI connectors in preview. | Model providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Gemini and Vertex, self-hosted inference servers, MCP servers and A2A agents, plus general HTTP, gRPC and TCP traffic. |
| Deployment | How the product is delivered. | In Vekri's cloud, or self-hosted in your Kubernetes cluster with no connection to Vekri. | Open source (Apache 2.0). Runs as a standalone binary, in Docker, or on Kubernetes, where it implements the Gateway API. Solo.io sells a commercial distribution, Solo Enterprise for agentgateway. |
Every agent tool call is allowed or denied before it reaches the protected system.
An agent running as a workload proves who it is with a credential the platform issued, not a shared key.
Agents that employees run sign in as that employee, through the company identity provider.
What an agent may do is set per task by the server, not by the agent or its prompt.
Decisions come from versioned policy, and anything not allowed is refused.
A person approves one specific operation, and the approval cannot be reused for another.
Secrets for the protected system stay out of the agent's reach.
Each call leaves a durable record of what was decided and what happened.
Finds AI coding agents and other AI applications on employee devices, and watches or controls what they do there.
Detects prompt injection or sensitive data in what models read and write.
Which systems, platforms or agents the product works with.
How the product is delivered.
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