[ COMPARISON BRIEF ]
SentnelOps vs MCP gateways: routing is not governance.
Searching for the best MCP security tools? Gateways move traffic. SentnelOps proves which agent did what, whether it was allowed, and enforces the answer — alongside any gateway you already run.
What a gateway does
An MCP gateway routes, aggregates, and brokers connections to MCP servers. It gives your agents one endpoint for many servers, handles connection plumbing, and answers the question: how do my agents reach these servers?
What SentnelOps does
SentnelOps is the governance layer: per-agent identity, runtime policy in plain YAML, permit/block/require_approval enforcement, and a tamper-evident record of every call. It answers: which agent did what, was it allowed, and can I prove it?
Why you'd run both
They solve different problems, so they compose. Keep your gateway for routing and aggregation, and put SentnelOps in the path so every tool call is identified, evaluated against policy, and logged before an MCP server sees it — in your own VPC, with zero data egress.
[ CAPABILITY MATRIX ]
| CAPABILITY | MCP GATEWAY | SENTNELOPS |
|---|---|---|
| Routes MCP traffic between agents and servers | ||
| Aggregates many MCP servers behind one endpoint | ||
| Per-agent identity on every tool call | ||
| Runtime policy in plain YAML (version-controlled, CI-testable) | ||
| Block or require human approval inline (Slack DM with full context) | ||
| Audit evidence per call + SOC 2-structured CSV export | ||
| Deploys in your VPC — zero data egress, logs in your database |
Complementary layers — SentnelOps governs traffic whether or not a gateway routes it.
Identity before access
Zero trust by default: every agent starts with zero permissions. You grant exactly what each agent may call, on which server, under which conditions — so a log line always names the agent, never just "the gateway."
Enforcement in the request path
Every MCP tool call is intercepted before the server sees it and evaluated against your YAML policy — permit, block, or require_approval — with less than 15ms p99 overhead. A blocked call never reaches the server.
Evidence you can hand to an auditor
Agent identity, tool, parameters, timestamp, decision, and the policy rule matched — for every call, stored in your own database, exportable as CSV structured for SOC 2 Type II. Retention of 7 days, 90 days, or 1 year by tier.
Keep your gateway. Add governance.
Deploy SentnelOps in your VPC and get your first logged, policy-checked call in under 10 minutes. Free tier, 14-day trial on paid plans.