Guide For technical leads & product managers 18 min read
The Protocol Landscape: UCP vs MCP vs A2A
Technical comparison of the three agent commerce protocols — when to use each and how they work together.
What's inside
- Side-by-side technical comparison: discovery mechanism, auth model, transaction flow for UCP, MCP, and A2A
- Decision matrix — which protocol(s) your brand needs based on target agent channels
- Integration complexity and timeline estimates per protocol per platform
- Real architecture diagrams showing how all three protocols coexist in a production stack