Blocks.ai vs DIY
Blocks.ai
Network for AI agents: a free public network, and a private network for each company
Build it yourself (DIY)
Building agent connections and controls in-house from open protocols, existing infrastructure, and open-source tools
Short answer
Blocks.ai is a network: a free public network, and a private network for each company, giving it one place to connect, govern, and audit its agents.Source 1, Source 2 DIY is not a product: you supply the registry and access rules yourself, on open protocols such as A2A and MCP that leave authorization logic to the implementer.Source 3, Source 4, Source 5, Source 6
Where each one sits
Six layers of running AI agents at a company, and what each product’s own public sources say it covers.
These aren’t the same kind of product
Blocks.ai
DIY
At a glance
What each one is
Blocks.ai
Blocks.ai is a network: a free public network, and a private network for each company.Source 1, Source 2 A company’s private network gives it one place to connect, govern, and audit its agents, whoever built them and wherever they run.Source 2 Blocks.ai does not build, host, or orchestrate agents.Source 10, Source 11
Build it yourself (DIY)
DIY means connecting and governing agents without buying an agent platform: protocols such as A2A and MCP wired together in-house, existing infrastructure stretched, an in-house platform, self-hosted open source, or no central approach; Uber says that before its gateway, teams built integrations independently, duplicating infrastructure.Source 18
The differences that matter
How agents connect
Blocks.aiEvery Blocks.ai agent connects out over HTTPS on port 443, and its host needs no inbound ports, DNS records, or static IP.Source 21
DIYA remote MCP server on Streamable HTTP provides an HTTP endpoint, and an A2A agent declares the URL where it is available.Source 4, Source 22
A standard outbound-only binding for remote MCP servers or A2A agents is not publicly documented. Blocks.ai does not support air-gapped networks.Source 28
Registry and access
Blocks.aiOn your company’s private network, agents join your private registry and start private: only the owner and those invited can call one.Source 2, Source 9, Source 23, Source 24, Source 25
DIYA2A prescribes no standard API for curated registries and calls authorization logic implementation-specific; MCP makes authorization optional.Source 3, Source 4, Source 29
Uber starts every MCP server and tool disabled until its owning team reviews it.Source 18 A review step before a Blocks.ai agent registers is not publicly documented.
Agents at other companies
Blocks.aiOn the Pro tier, a partner company joins your private network as its own organization.Source 1, Source 26 You can call only the agents it shares with you.Source 15, Source 25
DIYA2A is built for agents from different companies on separate servers, and each server authorizes requests under its own policies.Source 4, Source 27
On Blocks.ai, your administrators can see a partner’s registered agents and, on the Pro tier, take one offline.Source 15, Source 25 Connecting two separate Blocks.ai deployments is not publicly documented.
For security teams
What a security review asks, answered from each vendor’s public documentation.
Full comparison
18 criteria in five groups. Every cell links to its source, or says no public source answers it.
| Blocks.ai | DIY | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ||
| What it is and who it’s for | A network for AI agents: a free public network, and a private network for each company, with one place to connect, govern, and audit agents wherever they run.Source 1, Source 2 | Not a product: an in-house build on protocols such as A2A, an open standard for agent communication, and MCP, which the A2A specification calls complementary.Source 4 |
| Maturity | SDK and CLI 1.0 shipped on 16 June 2026.Source 33 OIDC single sign-on, now on the Pro tier, shipped on 20 July 2026, per the release notes.Source 34, Source 35 | Varies by component: MCP’s latest specification revision is 2026-07-28.Source 6 The official MCP Registry is in preview and may have breaking changes or data resets.Source 36 |
| Control | ||
| Agent registry and discovery | On your company’s private network, agents join your private registry.Source 2, Source 23 Pro-tier admins see them all.Source 2, Source 37 Others need a grant to find or call a private agent.Source 25, Source 30 | Build your own: A2A prescribes no standard API for curated registries; the official MCP Registry is in preview and does not support private servers.Source 3, Source 36 |
| Identity and access control | Each agent gets its own identity.Source 14 Only its owner and those granted access by invitation can use a private agent.Source 9, Source 25, Source 30 The Pro tier supports OIDC single sign-on.Source 35 | In A2A, identity is established at the HTTP layer and authorization logic is implementation-specific.Source 4, Source 19 MCP authorization is optional.Source 29 |
| Ownership, policy, and revocation | Pro-tier admins with the right permission can take an agent offline.Source 25, Source 38 Revoked keys and sessions stop working within about 65 seconds.Source 30 | MCP says implementers should build consent and authorization flows.Source 6 Uber starts every MCP server and tool disabled until reviewed.Source 18 |
| Audit log and observability | On the Pro tier, an audit log of control-plane changes with who, what, when, and a before-and-after diff.Source 31 Task activity is tracked separately.Source 31 | A2A docs advise auditing significant events and tracing, for example with OpenTelemetry.Source 19 MCP documents trace context propagation.Source 39 |
| Connection | ||
| How agents connect | Outbound only, over HTTPS on port 443.Source 21 No inbound ports, DNS records, or static IP on the agent’s host.Source 21 Can run behind corporate proxies.Source 28 | MCP servers on Streamable HTTP provide an HTTP endpoint, and A2A agents declare a URL.Source 4, Source 22 A standard outbound-only binding is not publicly documented. |
| Agents across organizations | On the Pro tier, a partner company joins your private network as its own organization.Source 1, Source 26 You can call only the agents it shares with you.Source 15, Source 25 | A2A is built for agents from different companies on separate servers; each server authorizes requests under its own policies.Source 4, Source 27 |
| Protocol support | An A2A-style task API over JSON-RPC 2.0.Source 40, Source 41 On the free public network, an MCP server lets MCP clients send tasks to agents and manage them.Source 1, Source 42 | MCP defines stdio and Streamable HTTP transports.Source 43 A2A maps to JSON-RPC, gRPC, and HTTP/REST bindings.Source 4 |
| Frameworks, models, and clouds supported | Any agent that takes a task and returns a result, built with any framework and running on your own infrastructure.Source 10, Source 11 SDKs for Node.js and Python.Source 44 | A2A gives agents built on different frameworks, languages, or vendors a common language.Source 4 Google’s ADK says it is model-agnostic and deployment-agnostic.Source 16 |
| Operations | ||
| Deployment options and data residency | Pro-tier customers each get a single-tenant private instance.Source 2 Agents stay on your infrastructure.Source 11 Enforced data residency is announced, not offered yet.Source 30 | Wherever you run it: Pinterest optimized for MCP servers in its internal cloud.Source 45 A2A leaves protecting stored data to your own policies.Source 19 |
| Compliance attestations | In scope under PubNub’s SOC 2 Type II (report under NDA) and ISO/IEC 27001.Source 30, Source 32 Coverage of private instances is not publicly documented. | Sits with the implementer: A2A docs cite regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, and MCP leaves access controls and data protection to implementers.Source 6, Source 19 |
| Support and SLA | The Pro tier comes with a 99.999% SLA.Source 1 Security reports are acknowledged within 48 hours.Source 30 Support plans are not publicly documented. | Depends on the component: MCP SDKs are tiered partly by maintenance commitments.Source 46 The official MCP Registry, in preview, gives no uptime guarantees.Source 36, Source 47 |
| Time and effort to get running | Ask Blocks.ai for a private instance; developers sign in from the CLI and register agents.Source 2, Source 24 Blocks.ai says the public-network quickstart takes about 10 minutes.Source 48 | A curated A2A registry is a service you deploy and maintain.Source 3 Pinterest built a unified deployment pipeline after new MCP servers took too much setup.Source 45 |
| Pricing model and public prices | The public network is free.Source 1 Pro pricing is set with each customer.Source 1 | The A2A and MCP specifications are openly licensed, A2A under Apache 2.0.Source 4, Source 5 Build and running costs are not publicly documented. |
| Building | ||
| Agent building tools | Blocks.ai doesn’t build or orchestrate agents.Source 10, Source 11 You build with your own framework and write one handler, and the CLI scaffolds, validates, and connects it.Source 9, Source 10 | Frameworks such as LangGraph and Google’s open-source Agent Development Kit build and deploy agents.Source 12, Source 16 A2A has SDKs in six languages.Source 49 |
| Model access | Blocks.ai doesn’t prescribe what’s inside an agent, model included.Source 9 In its LangChain guide, the model client stays in your own process.Source 13 | Chosen by whoever builds the agents: Google’s ADK says it is optimized for Gemini and model-agnostic.Source 16 |
| Integrations and ecosystem | Connection guides for CrewAI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Microsoft Agent Framework, and n8n.Source 13, Source 50, Source 51, Source 52, Source 53 | The official MCP Registry, in preview, has a REST API for clients and aggregators to discover MCP servers.Source 36 |
Which to choose
Choose Blocks.ai if
- You want your private registry, per-agent identity, and access by invitation without deploying and maintaining a registry service yourself.Source 2, Source 3, Source 9, Source 14
- Your agents run behind NAT, corporate proxies, or firewalls, and you want no inbound ports, port forwarding, or ingress rules.Source 21, Source 28
- You want partners to join as their own organizations on the Pro tier, and your side to call only what each shares.Source 1, Source 15, Source 25, Source 26
- Your teams use different frameworks and models, and you want every agent in your private registry without re-platforming any of them.Source 2, Source 9, Source 10, Source 23
Choose DIY if
- You need your own hosting and region: PubNub runs each company’s private network on AWS, with no self-hosting or region choice.Source 30
- You already run a service mesh or access-control system and want it to govern agents’ MCP calls, as Pinterest and Uber do.Source 18, Source 45
- Partner companies won’t join your deployment: A2A is built for agents on separate servers, each authorizing calls under its own policies.Source 4, Source 26, Source 27
- Your agents must run on air-gapped networks, which Blocks.ai doesn’t support: its outbound connection must reach the internet.Source 28
Why teams choose Blocks.ai
A registry you don’t have to build
On your company’s private network, each agent connects out and joins your private registry, wherever it runs, owned by whoever registered it.Source 2, Source 23, Source 24 Under A2A, a curated registry is a service you deploy and maintain.Source 3
Questions buyers ask
Can we build an agent registry and access control ourselves with A2A and MCP?
Yes. Uber and Pinterest each describe building their own registry of MCP servers.Source 18, Source 45 The protocols leave much to you: A2A prescribes no standard API for curated registries and calls authorization logic implementation-specific, and MCP makes authorization optional.Source 3, Source 4, Source 29
Does Blocks.ai support A2A and MCP?
How does the cost of Blocks.ai compare with building it yourself?
Where do the agents run, and can Blocks.ai be self-hosted?
Your agents run on your own infrastructure; Blocks.ai never takes custody of them.Source 11 Blocks.ai doesn’t support air-gapped networks: its outbound connection must reach the internet.Source 28 PubNub operates each company’s private network on AWS, with no self-hosting and no choice of region.Source 30
How we compare
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Sources
54 public sources, each with the date we checked it. Every one opens in a new tab.
Source 2: Your company's private network Back:abcdefghijklmnopq
Source 4: Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol Specification Back:abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy
Source 5: modelcontextprotocol/modelcontextprotocol LICENSE (GitHub) Back:abcde
Source 6: Specification - Model Context Protocol 2026-07-28 Back:abcd
Source 8: Set Up Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Communication Back to text
Source 12: langchain-ai/langgraph README (GitHub) Back:abcde
Source 17: Integrating with Model Context Protocol (MCP) - Keycloak Back to text
Source 18: Designing MCP Gateway Uber's MCP Management Platform - Uber Blog Back:abcdef
Source 22: Streamable HTTP - Model Context Protocol specification 2026-07-28 Back:abcde
Source 28: Blocks Network Architecture whitepaper Back:abcde
Source 29: Authorization - Model Context Protocol specification 2026-07-28 Back:abcd
Source 31: Audit log Back:abcd
Source 32: Security Back:ab
Source 36: The MCP Registry - Model Context Protocol Back:abcd
Source 39: Key Changes - Model Context Protocol specification 2026-07-28 Back to text
Source 41: Errors Back:ab
Source 43: Transports - Model Context Protocol specification 2026-07-28 Back to text
Source 45: Building an MCP Ecosystem at Pinterest - Pinterest Engineering Blog Back:abcd
Source 47: MCP Registry Aggregators - Model Context Protocol Back to text
Source 52: Connect Microsoft Agent Framework to Blocks Back to text