PILLAR_CMP-PROTOCOLS LIVE CATEGORY PROTOCOLS · 4 ITEMS

Compare protocols.

4 protocols side-by-side on consistent axes. Per-axis values carry lastCheckedAt + confidence + source.

4 items tracked

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// AXIS	MCP — Model Context ProtocolConnect agents to tools, data sources, and apps	A2A — Agent-to-Agent ProtocolDiscover and delegate to other agents
Publisher	Anthropic checked 2026-05-07 · high confidence	Google checked 2026-05-07 · high confidence
Introduced	Nov 2024 checked 2026-05-07 · high confidence	2025 checked 2026-05-07 · high confidence
Adoption	established Cross-vendor adoption — Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI (via Apps SDK), Google (via Vertex). 350+ servers tracked.	growing Useful for multi-agent systems and sub-task delegation. Different problem space than MCP.
Transport	stdio · HTTP+SSE · WebSocket	HTTP
Open Spec	yes	yes
Leads At	Largest server catalog Cross-vendor support Cleanest spec	Multi-agent orchestration Discovery primitives
Lags At	Auth / multi-tenancy still evolving (RFC 2.0 in flight)	Smaller adoption than MCP Use case narrower (multi-agent specific)
Verdict	Default for tool connection. The de-facto standard.	Use when you're orchestrating multiple agents. Complementary to MCP, not a replacement.

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DISCLOSURES

Microsoft pages disclose Sush's employer.
No vendor pays for placement.
Verdicts are scoped to a use-case (``default for X'' / ``use when Y''). Not winner / loser.
Every axis carries lastCheckedAt and confidence. Pricing in particular drifts — we date it explicitly.