Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX) vs Willow: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX): Gateway for securing, governing, and auditing AI agent access to MCP servers. built by Lunar.dev. Core capabilities include Centralized MCP server registry with service discovery for local and remote servers, Role-based access control (RBAC) with per-agent tool restrictions and on-behalf-of attribution, Authentication to MCP servers via API keys or OAuth..

Willow: Control plane for governing enterprise AI agent identity, access, and actions. built by Willow. Core capabilities include AI agent identity verification and authentication, Action-level permission enforcement and policy rules, Self-service employee tool catalog with identity-based provisioning..

Both serve the Agentic AI Security market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.

Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX) differentiates with Centralized MCP server registry with service discovery for local and remote servers, Role-based access control (RBAC) with per-agent tool restrictions and on-behalf-of attribution, Authentication to MCP servers via API keys or OAuth. Willow differentiates with AI agent identity verification and authentication, Action-level permission enforcement and policy rules, Self-service employee tool catalog with identity-based provisioning.

Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX) is developed by Lunar.dev. Willow is developed by Willow. Vendor maturity, funding stage, and team size can be important factors when evaluating long-term viability and support quality.

Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX) integrates with Okta, Azure AD, Lunar.dev AI Gateway. Willow integrates with Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, Slack, AWS and 2 more. Check integration compatibility with your existing security stack before deciding.

Lunar.dev MCP Gateway (MCPX) and Willow serve similar Agentic AI Security use cases: both are Agentic AI Security tools, both cover Agentic AI Security, AI Governance, MCP Security. Review the feature comparison above to determine which fits your requirements.