Arcade vs Toolhouse
A side-by-side comparison of Arcade and Toolhouse, two MCP tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Arcade | Toolhouse |
|---|---|---|
| Category | MCP | MCP |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Platforms (differs) | API | Web, API, CLI |
| Model support (differs) | Model-agnostic | Multi-model |
| Vendor (differs) | Arcade | Toolhouse |
| 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
Toolhouse
Bundles the agent runtime and MCP tooling behind one API, so you skip wiring the infrastructure together yourself.
- Deploy agents as APIs in one command
- 1,000+ MCP tool integrations built in
- Built-in RAG, memory, and code execution
- Free tier includes OpenAI model usage
- Free Sandbox capped at 50 agent runs/month
- Vendor-hosted; less control than self-hosting
- Younger platform with a smaller ecosystem
When to pick which
Across the signals we compare, Arcade and Toolhouse differ on platforms:
- Platforms
- API · Web, API, CLI
Their capability lists differ in recorded depth — compare the full lists above before deciding.