At a glance

Willow finds supported AI use across managed devices and browsers, then lets IT govern identities, policies, MCP access, skills, plugins, and agents.

MCP Manager places registered remote, managed, and workstation MCP servers behind one gateway with identity, tool controls, content rules, and audit logs.

The core difference

Willow finds employee AI before registration. MCP Manager secures approved MCP connections. Willow's job begins with discovery, the AI nobody told IT about. MCP Manager's job begins once a connection is already approved and routed through its gateway.

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Where Willow leads: find the AI employees adopted without asking IT

Willow finds AI on managed devices and in supported browsers, including tools that never reached an approved gateway.

• Find local AI automatically. Discover supported MCP configurations, installed AI clients, skills, Cursor rules, CLAUDE.md, and AGENTS.md files on managed macOS and Windows devices.
• Apply policy outside MCP calls. Prompt Guard beta can block or redact prompts and attachments on supported web AI sites. Claude Guard can pause Claude-in-Chrome actions before the browser sends them. IT can push these controls through existing device-management tools.
• Manage skills, plugins, and agents. Publish governed skills, toolkits, and plugins. Give machine users and background agents named owners, scoped access, credentials, and rotation.
• Enforce model budgets. In supported clients, Usage Hooks can stop prompts after a model reaches its monthly budget. Willow also provides token analytics and model policies.

When to choose MCP Manager

Choose MCP Manager only when schema-change blocking leads the project, or when protocol-specific protection for approved connections defines it.

• Stop changed tool definitions. It stores the approved schema and can block updated tools until an administrator reviews and approves them again.
• Apply named MCP protections. MCP Manager has controls for rug pulls, tool poisoning, anti-mimicry, server spoofing, cross-server shadowing, and prompt injection.

These are real strengths for a team whose entire project is hardening a set of connections that are already approved and routed through a gateway. If that is the whole scope, MCP Manager fits. If you first need to find the AI that never reached a gateway, that is where Willow starts.

Proven at enterprise scale

"We are six to ten months ahead of most companies in AI adoption. More code to production, fewer incidents, real outcomes. Willow is what made it possible to move that fast without slowing down our security posture."Asaf Yonay, Head of AI Core, Wix

• ~5,000 weekly active users at Wix
• ~600 governed tools and MCPs
• 2M+ governed tool calls each week

Bottom line

Willow finds and governs employee AI across devices, browsers, clients, identities, tools, skills, and agents. MCP Manager specializes in protecting approved MCP connections.

Use Willow when IT must first find the AI employees adopted without approval. Choose MCP Manager only when schema-change blocking or protocol-specific MCP protection decides the purchase.

FAQs

What is the main difference between Willow and MCP Manager?

Willow finds and governs employee AI across devices, browsers, clients, identities, tools, skills, bots, and agents. MCP Manager focuses on MCP schema changes, protocol attacks, and approved local-server tunnels.

Which product finds AI that employees did not register with IT?

Willow finds supported local AI clients, MCP settings, skill files, and agent instructions on managed macOS and Windows devices. MCP Manager starts with approved MCP connections already sent through managed routes.

When should I choose Willow?

When you need to find AI that employees adopted without registering it, then govern that use across devices, browsers, clients, tools, skills, bots, and agents.

When should I choose MCP Manager?

Choose MCP Manager only when automatic MCP schema-change blocking or protocol-specific protection for approved connections defines the project.