fastn vs Docker MCP
A catalog and gateway for running MCP servers as containers, with Docker's distribution and isolation behind it.
What Docker MCP is good at
Real isolation. Running each MCP server in a container is a genuinely good answer to the question of what a tool can reach, and it is the thing Docker is best in the world at.
A distribution model everyone already understands, with signing and provenance that most MCP catalogs lack.
Excellent for local and self-hosted setups where you want to inspect and control exactly what is running.
The actual difference
Docker MCP gives you infrastructure to run. fastn gives you a service where there is nothing to run. The consequential difference is not containers versus cloud, it is multi-tenancy: a container isolates a process, but it does not by itself give each of your customers their own authorised connection, their own field mapping, and their own audit trail. That tenancy model is what an embedded integration product needs and what you would otherwise build on top.
Choose Docker MCP when
You want to self-host, you need container-level isolation for compliance reasons, or you are running MCP servers for your own internal use.
Choose fastn when
You are shipping integrations to customers inside your product and do not want to operate per-tenant infrastructure to do it.
The question that settles it
Who operates the servers when you have a thousand customers, each with their own credentials?
Questions people actually ask
Is this a fair comparison? They are different layers.
They are, and that is worth saying plainly. Docker MCP is infrastructure and fastn is a managed layer. They appear in the same evaluations because both answer how an agent reaches a third-party system safely, but the answers sit at different levels and can coexist.
Can I run fastn connectors in my own infrastructure?
Talk to us about deployment options. The default is managed, because operating per-tenant connections is most of the work being taken off your plate, but requirements differ.
Other comparisons
The fastest way to judge this is to connect one system and see what your customer would see.
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