# Model Context Protocol (MCP) vs. Agent2Agent (A2A): which protocol do you need?

DevFeed: [Model Context Protocol (MCP) vs. Agent2Agent (A2A): which protocol do you need?](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/model-context-protocol-mcp-vs-agent2agent-a2a-which-protocol-do-you-need-4821.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://redis.io/blog/mcp-vs-a2a-which-protocol-do-you-need/>)

Author: Jeff Mills

Published: 2026-07-22T00:00:00Z

Content type: comparison

Language: en

Sources: [Redis Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/redis-blog.md>)

Topics: [Model Context Protocol](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/model-context-protocol.md>), [Remote Procedure Call (RPC)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/rpc.md>), [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [JSON](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/json.md>), [Large Language Model](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/llm.md>), [Orchestration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/orchestration.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/observability.md>), [servers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/servers.md>), [Grafana](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/grafana.md>)

Tags: [agent](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agent.md>), [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [developer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer.md>), [developer-tooling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer-tooling.md>), [grafana](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/grafana.md>), [guide](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/guide.md>), [json](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/json.md>), [mcp](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mcp.md>), [model-context-protocol](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/model-context-protocol.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/observability.md>), [rpc](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/rpc.md>), [tech-de](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tech-de.md>)

## AI overview

This guide compares the Model Context Protocol (MCP) with Agent2Agent (A2A), explaining that MCP connects an LLM application to tools and data while A2A connects independent agents. It describes MCP's hosts, clients, servers, tools, resources, prompts, JSON-RPC transport, streaming, production use cases, and governance limitations.

## Source excerpt

Somewhere around your third agent, someone in a design review asks, "Shouldn't we be using A2A for this?" It's a fair question that most teams can't answer well, because the two big agent protocols keep getting lumped together when they solve differen...