Runlayer vs Docker MCP Gateway
Docker MCP Gateway is an open-source proxy that runs MCP servers in isolated containers and keeps their secrets out of config files: a strong choice for a developer or a small team. Runlayer is a company-wide platform: it discovers shadow AI on devices, signs users in through your identity provider, enforces policy to argument depth, scans tool calls at runtime and keeps an attributable audit log. Choose by scope: one developer's machine, or every team's agents.
Side by side
Marks follow the shared criteria. Runlayer and are in the main comparison table.
| Dimension | Runlayer | Docker MCP Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility | Strong: device and cloud discovery. | Partial: servers in your catalogs and profiles. |
| Authentication | Strong: identity provider sync, agent accounts. | Partial: upstream OAuth; client SSO not documented. |
| Credential handling | Strong: secrets in your store, held in memory. | Strong: Docker Desktop secret store, injected per call. |
| Policy depth | Strong: users, agents, tools, arguments, sessions, approvals. | Partial: tools per profile, container limits. |
| Runtime threat detection | Strong: ToolGuard, AgentGuard, scanners. | Partial: isolation, no documented detection. |
| Audit | Strong: attributable, SIEM export. | Partial: logging and call tracing. |
| Deployment | Hosted or your cloud; not open source. | Open source (MIT), Docker CLI plugin. |
They can coexist
Container isolation for local servers and a company-wide gateway answer different questions. Teams that already run servers through Docker can keep doing so and govern access, identity and audit in Runlayer.
Which suits whom
- A developer or small team running local MCP serversDocker MCP Gateway.
- A company governing agents for many teams and clientsRunlayer.
Sources
- MCP Gateway · Docker documentation
- docker/mcp-gateway (MIT) · GitHub
- Runlayer: AI control plane (discovery, gateway, policies, runtime execution) · Runlayer
- Policies (users, groups, agent accounts, tools, payload conditions, approvals) · Runlayer documentation
- Shadow AI discovery (AI Watch device agent, Cloud Discovery) · Runlayer documentation