Arcade vs Nango
A side-by-side comparison of Arcade and Nango, two MCP tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Arcade | Nango |
|---|---|---|
| Category | MCP | MCP |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Deployment (differs) | Cloud | Hybrid |
| Platforms (differs) | API | Web, API, CLI |
| Model support | Model-agnostic | Model-agnostic |
| Vendor (differs) | Arcade | Nango |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Arcade
Auth-first MCP runtime: brokers per-user OAuth so an agent acts as the real end user, not behind one shared token.
- Real actions in Gmail, GitHub, Slack
- Prebuilt agent-optimized tools
- Open framework for custom tools
- Exposed over MCP standard
- Closed/hosted core platform
- Newer entrant in MCP space
- Setup needed per integration
- Free tier limited
Nango
You write integration logic as plain TypeScript, or generate it with AI, instead of being limited to a fixed catalog of prebuilt connectors.
- Self-hostable integration runtime
- 800+ API integrations
- MCP server and tool calling for agents
- Handles auth, syncs, and webhooks
- Elastic License, not OSI open source
- Usage-metered pricing adds up
- Integrations need maintenance
When to pick which
Both cover MCP server and Tool / function calling.
Pick Arcade if you need MCP gateway / registry.
- MCP gateway / registry (secondary capability)
Pick Nango if you need ETL / data pipeline.
- ETL / data pipeline (secondary capability)
Nango leans on MCP server as a headline capability; Arcade treats it as secondary.
- MCP server (primary capability)
They also differ on:
- Deployment
- Cloud · Hybrid
- Platforms
- API · Web, API, CLI