MCP infrastructure

MCP Server Hosting: Best Platforms for Secure Remote MCP

Remote MCP servers are now much closer to ordinary HTTP services than earlier stateful deployments. That makes VPS, container, serverless, and managed application infrastructure viable choices, but authentication, authorization, tool exposure, logging, and network boundaries remain critical.

Current remote MCP architecture

The current MCP specification uses a stateless protocol core for remote operation. Requests can be routed across normal HTTP infrastructure without requiring sticky sessions, while method and tool information can be surfaced through request headers for gateways and policy layers.

Hosting options

Security requirements

• Authenticate clients before granting access to protected tools.
• Authorize operations using the narrowest useful scopes.
• Separate public transport access from sensitive backend credentials.
• Rate-limit high-impact or expensive tools.
• Record tool calls and failures for audit and incident review.
• Do not expose administrative or destructive tools unnecessarily.

Observability now fits standard infrastructure

The current MCP specification supports trace-context propagation so an MCP tool call can participate in a broader distributed trace across the agent, gateway, MCP server, and downstream services.