cortex-gateway
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Pipedream MCP alternative: own your gateway, your vault and your audit trail
Pipedream brings an enormous app catalog and hosted MCP endpoints on top of its automation platform — excellent when you want reach without infrastructure. Cortex Gateway is the self-hosted alternative for the MCP access layer: one OAuth 2.1 endpoint you operate, federating your own apps and third-party MCP servers, with per-user tokens encrypted in a vault you control. It does not replace Pipedream's workflows — it replaces the layer that holds credentials and decides what agents can do.
Two different centers of gravity
Pipedream starts from integration breadth: thousands of connected apps, hosted triggers and workflows, and MCP endpoints that let agents reach that catalog with managed per-user auth. The platform operates everything — including the credential store.
Cortex Gateway starts from the access layer itself. It is a thin, spec-compliant MCP server (Streamable HTTP, MCP 2025-06-18) that hosts no business logic: it validates OAuth 2.1 tokens, filters the federated tool catalog by the caller's scopes, routes each call to the app that owns the tool, and writes a pseudonymized audit line. Identity always travels: first-party backends re-validate your JWT; proxied third-party MCP servers receive the calling user's own linked token.
At a glance
| Cortex Gateway | Pipedream (MCP) | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Open source (MIT), self-hosted | Hosted platform |
| Primary job | MCP access layer for your stack | App catalog + workflows, MCP on top |
| Catalog | Your apps + any MCP server (adapter, beta) | Thousands of ready-made apps |
| Credential custody | Your infra — AES-256-GCM vault | Their platform |
| Workflow engine | None (by design) | Yes, mature |
| Scope-based tool visibility | Built-in (scopes = entitlements) | Platform-managed |
| Audit | Your logs + optional PostgreSQL, retention you set | Platform logs |
| Cost | Free software + your VM | Platform pricing |
Who should pick which
Pick Cortex Gateway if the tools that matter are your own products, your security review asks who holds user grants, you need EU/self-hosted data residency, or you want scope-tiered tool access (free vs pro) without writing paywall code.
Pick Pipedream if your need is breadth-first — many SaaS apps, event-driven workflows, zero ops — and hosted custody is acceptable. If you rely on its workflow engine, keep it: Cortex Gateway deliberately does not compete there.
Using both
A common pattern: Cortex Gateway as the front door your agents authenticate to (identity, scopes, audit, your first-party tools) — and hosted connectors kept for long-tail SaaS until the adapter path covers them. One agent-facing URL, custody where it matters most first.
Try Cortex Gateway →Or plug the hosted demo into claude.ai in 30 seconds.
FAQ
Does Cortex Gateway run automations or scheduled jobs?
No. It is deliberately a gateway, not a runtime: agents bring the reasoning, backends bring the tools, the gateway brings identity, filtering and audit. Pair it with whatever scheduler or agent framework you already use.
How hard is self-hosting it, honestly?
One Docker container (or a small Next.js deployment), an OAuth 2.1 issuer (a complete demo authorization server ships in the repo), and one env var per backend. The deployment runbook takes about an hour on a fresh VM, TLS included.
Is there a hosted version of Cortex Gateway?
Only a public demo for evaluation. The product stance is self-hosted — that is the point.