# Runlayer alternatives: three questions to ask

> Compare Runlayer alternatives on where connectors come from, how access rules are written, and whether every AI client signs into one address.

**TL;DR** The useful way to compare Runlayer alternatives is on three mechanics: where the connectors come from, how access rules are written, and whether clients share one address. Runlayer documents a catalog it builds plus official vendor MCPs, access rules targeting users, groups, roles or agent accounts, and hosted or self-hosted AWS deployment. Elaichi serves one endpoint for every organization, authors and runs most of its catalog itself, and targets restrictions at a role or one named member.

## Why you are comparing at all

Somebody on your team asked for an MCP server. Then three people asked. Now you are reading vendor pages at eleven at night. Half of them are products; half are features of something else. MCP is the protocol that lets an AI client such as Claude or ChatGPT call your business tools. A control plane sits in front of those calls and decides who may make them.

Runlayer is one of the products in this space, and the runlayer alternatives shortlist usually starts there. Elaichi is on it too. The pages all use the same words, so the words are not where the decision gets made. Three mechanics are. The first is where the connectors come from. The second is how access rules are written. The third is whether every AI client signs into one address.

This post compares on those three. Where Runlayer's own documentation says something, it is cited and dated. Where it does not say, the honest answer is to ask Runlayer, not to guess.

## What are the real runlayer alternatives, and what are you comparing?

The runlayer alternatives worth your time sit in the same position. They stand between your people's AI clients and your company's apps, and decide what may run. Elaichi is one. The broader category has four shapes, covered in [the four shapes of an MCP gateway](/blog/what-is-an-mcp-gateway/). Knowing which shape you are buying matters more than the brand.

| | Runlayer | Elaichi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Where connectors come from | Catalog connectors built by Runlayer or official vendor MCPs; manual endpoints; Runlayer Deploy | Most authored and run by Elaichi; native MCP connectors are vendors' own servers; Gold orgs add their own remote MCP server |
| How a person signs in | Each user completes the provider's consent screen once per OAuth connector, with their own credentials | Each person connects their client once and approves their own OAuth grant at one endpoint |
| How access is restricted | Access rules target users, groups, roles or agent accounts, scoped to a whole server or specific tools | Allow or block rules target a role or one named member, naming whole connectors or single tools |
| What the audit record holds | Not on the pages we checked | Who called, the tool and connector, the connection reached, the MCP client, approval facts and outcome |
| How it is hosted | Hosted, or self-hosted in your own AWS account | Hosted by Elaichi, in the EU, US or APAC region chosen at creation |

The Runlayer cells come from Runlayer's own [connectors documentation](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-connectors), [policies documentation](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-policies) and [docs home](https://docs.runlayer.com/), all checked October 2026. On the Elaichi hosting cell: for EU and US the data store stays in that region. An APAC organization gets best-effort placement and is not a residency guarantee. Every organization's audit trail is stored in one EU log instance, whatever its region ([privacy policy](/privacy/)).

Runlayer's homepage describes itself as "AI enablement, security, and control in one platform", and the same page says it lets teams "serve them through a governed MCP gateway across every major AI client" ([runlayer.com](https://www.runlayer.com/), checked October 2026).

Elaichi's own description is a governed MCP control plane. One endpoint that Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor all sign into, in front of one governed connector catalog.

So far, two companies saying similar things. The next three sections are where they diverge.

## Where do the connectors come from?

This is the question that decides who you call when a tool breaks. Runlayer's documentation says "A connector is a managed MCP server in Runlayer" ([docs.runlayer.com](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-connectors), checked October 2026). It says a connector "packages the MCP endpoint together with auth, configuration, permissions, and client setup instructions" (checked October 2026). The same page lists three ways to add one: from the connector catalog, manually, or via Runlayer Deploy (checked October 2026). It describes catalog connectors as either "Built and maintained by Runlayer" or "Official vendor MCPs" maintained by the upstream SaaS provider (checked October 2026). The manual path points Runlayer "at an internal, community, or proprietary MCP endpoint" (checked October 2026). Runlayer Deploy is for building and deploying your own MCP servers on Runlayer (checked October 2026).

That is a reasonable shape, and it covers both sides of the build-or-borrow question.

Elaichi's catalog holds two kinds of connector. Most of it is connectors Elaichi authors and runs itself. The rest are [native MCP connectors](/blog/vendor-mcp-servers-per-saas-vs-one-plane/). Each is a vendor's own remote MCP server, built and run by that vendor, published once by Elaichi staff for every organization. The console badge on those reads "The vendor's own MCP server. Elaichi handles sign-in, access and audit." An organization on Gold can also add its own remote MCP server as a connector. That brings it under the same restrictions, scopes and audit log. There are 650+ connectors in the catalog.

The practical difference is narrow but real. Elaichi does not wrap a third-party connector marketplace, and it does not claim to have written a vendor's MCP server. When a native MCP connector's tools misbehave, reports go to the vendor's support contact, shown on the connector's page. When an Elaichi-authored connector misbehaves, that is Elaichi's. Knowing which is which before you file a ticket saves a week.

## How are access rules written?

Runlayer's policy documentation says "Access rules grant permissions to users, groups, roles, or agent accounts for specific MCP servers" ([docs.runlayer.com](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-policies), checked October 2026). Each rule is scoped to either "Entire Server" or "Specific Tools & Resources" (checked October 2026). Conditions there can evaluate "tool arguments ... request metadata like IP and client, OAuth session state, tool annotations, and session history" (checked October 2026). The same page says access policies are "evaluated by the proxy on every tool invocation" (checked October 2026).

That condition vocabulary is genuinely broad. If your requirement is a rule that reads an argument value or the client's IP address before allowing a call, Runlayer's documented conditions cover ground Elaichi's restrictions do not.

Elaichi's shape is narrower. In Elaichi, restriction targets are role or user only; the organization default is the absence of a rule, which means allow everything. A restriction on a role applies to every member who holds it. To keep a team off a tool, you write the rule on their role or on each member. Each rule carries a mode of allow or block, a list of whole connectors and a list of single tools. A block beats an allow within a layer. An allow rule turns on an allowlist for its layer just by existing, so an allow rule naming nothing blocks everything for its target. That trap has its own post: [the allow rule that blocks all tools](/blog/empty-allow-rule-denies-everything/).

Timing differs by change. Restrictions are checked at every point a member can reach a tool. That includes when tools are advertised to a client, and again before a call leaves. A role, team-membership, restriction or grant change reaches every point of presence in about two minutes. That is the worst case rather than the typical delay: up to a minute for the cache write to spread, plus up to a minute of edge caching.

Four changes are effective on the next call: revoking a grant, removing or suspending a member, revoking a share, and disconnecting an account. Elaichi re-reads the grant on every MCP request, so a disconnected client fails on its next call rather than when its token expires.

For arguments you want fixed rather than checked, Elaichi uses frozen parameters on a toolbox entry. They are values written into the entry that a caller cannot override. They hold only on calls that run through that entry. The model can see short frozen values in the tool description, though it cannot change them. [Locking AI agent tool arguments](/blog/frozen-parameters-wire-transfer-receiver/) covers where that holds and where it does not.

## Is there one address, or one per connector?

Runlayer's connectors documentation does not give a general URL pattern for ordinary connectors. The flow is to "Open a connector and click Add to Client" ([docs.runlayer.com](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-connectors), checked October 2026). It does document a fixed hostname pattern for private servers reached through an Anthropic MCP Tunnel, such as "https://github.private.example/mcp" (checked October 2026). Runlayer also says "Each user still completes the provider's consent screen once per OAuth connector, with their own credentials" (checked October 2026).

Elaichi serves MCP at one endpoint, POST https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp, the same string for every organization. Which organization, person and tools a client reaches comes from the OAuth grant behind its bearer token, not from the URL. OAuth here is the sign-in flow where a person approves what an app may do on their behalf. A grant is the record of that approval.

Each person still connects their client once and approves their own grant. The grant is the approval. On the consent screen the person picks one organization and ticks the scopes the client requested. When "Run your connected tools" is ticked, they also choose between all their tools and a named set of toolboxes. Over MCP there is no per-call approval from Elaichi. Whether the client asks before running a tool is that client's own behavior.

The operational consequence of one address is that there is nothing to re-distribute when the catalog changes. Add a connector, and nobody updates a config file. [MCP endpoint per team, per person or per company](/blog/one-endpoint-vs-per-team-endpoint/) argues that trade-off properly.

## Where Runlayer fits, and where Elaichi does not

Runlayer's documentation says it "runs as a hosted deployment or self-hosted in your own AWS account" ([docs.runlayer.com](https://docs.runlayer.com/), checked October 2026). It adds that this integrates "with existing Terraform and Kubernetes workflows" (checked October 2026). Your security review may require the control plane inside your own AWS account. Your rules may need to read tool arguments and request IPs. Runlayer documents both, and Elaichi does not. Elaichi is hosted, which is [a residency question worth working through](/blog/self-hosting-mcp-for-data-residency/) before you decide. Its regions are EU, US and APAC, chosen when the organization is created and not changeable afterwards.

Runlayer's Connectors and Policies pages do not document the field list of a single audit entry. They say decisions such as connector approvals are "recorded in the audit log" ([docs.runlayer.com](https://docs.runlayer.com/platform-connectors), checked October 2026). That is a question to put to Runlayer, not something to infer.

There is a case where you need neither. If two engineers each run one local MCP server, a control plane is a vendor you do not have to add yet. [When you don't need an MCP gateway yet](/blog/when-you-dont-need-an-mcp-gateway/) makes that argument honestly. The thing that changes the answer is a second team asking, or an auditor asking who ran what.

To see Elaichi's own shape, read the [connector catalog](/connectors/) next. The [governance use cases](/use-cases/governance/) page shows how the rules get written.

## FAQ

### What does Runlayer say its access rules can target?

Runlayer's policy documentation says access rules grant permissions to users, groups, roles or agent accounts for specific MCP servers, scoped to either an entire server or specific tools and resources, with conditions that can evaluate tool arguments, request metadata such as IP and client, OAuth session state, tool annotations and session history (docs.runlayer.com/platform-policies, checked October 2026).

### How does Elaichi target a restriction?

In Elaichi, restriction targets are role or user only; the organization default is the absence of a rule, which means allow everything. A restriction on a role applies to every member who holds it. To keep a team off a connector or tool, write the rule on their role or on each member individually. Each rule is allow or block, names whole connectors and single tools, and a block always beats an allow within the same layer.

### How fast does a restriction change take effect in Elaichi?

A role, team-membership, restriction or access-grant change in Elaichi reaches every point of presence in about two minutes. That is the worst case rather than the typical delay. Some changes are effective on the client's next call: revoking an OAuth grant, removing or suspending a member, revoking a share, and disconnecting a connected account.

### Does each AI client get its own MCP address in Elaichi?

No. Elaichi serves MCP at one endpoint, POST https://api.elaichi.ai/mcp, the same address for every organization. Which organization, person and tools a client reaches comes from the OAuth grant behind its bearer token rather than from the URL, so Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor all sign into the same address. Each person still connects their client once and approves their own grant.

### Can Elaichi govern an MCP server that a vendor or my own team runs?

Yes. Elaichi's catalog includes native MCP connectors, where the vendor builds and runs its own MCP server and Elaichi handles sign-in, access and audit in front of it. An organization on the Gold plan can also add its own remote MCP server, one that speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP on a public HTTPS address, as its own connector, which brings its tools under the same restrictions, scopes and audit log.

## Read next

- [Natoma alternatives: what to compare first](/blog/natoma-alternatives/) — A buyer's guide to natoma alternatives for governed MCP access across Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor: four things to compare, and where Elaichi fits.
- [Workato Enterprise MCP alternatives: how to choose](/blog/workato-enterprise-mcp-alternatives/) — Workato Enterprise MCP alternatives come in three shapes. Here is what each one is built for, and what to check before you buy.
- [Pipedream MCP alternatives for teams](/blog/pipedream-mcp-alternatives/) — What Pipedream's own pages say about Conduit, and how to weigh pipedream mcp alternatives on identity, audit and pricing.