Keycard alternatives

Runtime auth for agents that gives each agent its own identity and issues just-in-time, scoped credentials after verifying the workload, the user it acts for, and policy. Full Keycard record →

1. 1 Nango Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ✓ ★ 13k released 2026-10-29 Elastic-2.0 Compare with Keycard →

2. 2 Pipedream Connect Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ✓ ★ 12k released 2026-10-28 proprietary; components repo under Pipedream… Compare with Keycard →

3. 3 Auth0 for AI Agents Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ? proprietary Compare with Keycard →

4. 4 Descope Agentic Identity Hub Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ? proprietary Compare with Keycard →

5. 5 Merge Agent Handler Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ✓ proprietary Compare with Keycard →

6. 6 Okta Cross App Access (XAA) Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ? proprietary Compare with Keycard →

7. 7 Paragon ActionKit Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ? proprietary Compare with Keycard →

8. 8 Stytch Connected Apps Agent identity & auth

   also in Agent identity & auth

   OSS — Self-host ? Managed ? MCP ? proprietary Compare with Keycard →

Ranked by shared memory design (storage, retrieval, conflict handling, memory unit), same section and shared must-haves (open source, self-hosting, MCP), with adoption as a tie-breaker. ✓ confirmed · — no · ? not in the catalog yet. Want picks for your own requirements? Use the chooser. Checking a whole project? Check your stack.