Corsair vs Nango: Is It Worth Self Hosting Your AI Agent Integration Platform

Self hosting sounds simple until you read the fine print. Two integration layers that both claim to be open and both let you write integration logic in code are Corsair and Nango, but what "free" and "self hosted" actually include is where they stop looking alike. This guide walks through how each one handles credentials, what self hosting actually gets you, how the licensing works, and what it costs to run at scale, so you can see exactly what you are signing up for before you build on top of either one.

How Do Automation Platforms Handle Credentials Securely

Every integration layer eventually has to answer the same question: where do your customers' credentials actually live, and who can see them.

Corsair resolves credentials internally at call time, so your agent only ever sees method names and results, never a raw API key or token. On the hosted Corsair Hub, none of that data is stored on Corsair's side at all. Every credential lives in your own database, partitioned per tenant, with a configurable permission mode per integration and an approval step for destructive actions. If Corsair's infrastructure were ever compromised, there would be nothing of your customers' data in it to expose, because it was never there to begin with.

Nango takes a more conventional approach: it manages OAuth, API keys, and token refresh for you, but the credentials themselves are stored and resolved inside Nango's own infrastructure, whether you are on the free tier or a paid plan. That is a reasonable model for a managed service, but it means your customers' credentials sit in a third party's database by design, not yours.

Is It Worth Self Hosting a Workflow Automation Tool

This is the question that actually separates the two platforms, because "self hosted" means something different at each one.

Nango publishes its code under the Elastic License and lets you self host for free, but the free self hosted deployment ships with a limited feature set. Capabilities like SOC 2 support, role based access control, branding customization, and priority support are reserved for the paid Cloud plan or a separately negotiated Enterprise Self Hosted agreement. In practice, self hosting Nango for free means running a reduced version of the product, not the full thing.

Corsair is different by design. You can self host the complete SDK, every feature included, on your own infrastructure at no cost, with no per seat pricing and no markup added to the API calls you are already paying the third party provider for. There is no gated tier standing between "free" and "full featured." If you would rather not run the infrastructure yourself, the hosted Corsair Hub gives you the same product without that operational burden, but self hosting was never treated as a stripped down trial version to begin with. You can read more about what that tradeoff looks like across the integration space in our post on open source versus closed source integration tools.

Automation Platform for Developers Who Want Full Code Control

Both platforms are code first, and both let you write and version integration logic rather than click together a workflow in a visual builder. That much is genuinely similar.

Where they part ways is licensing. Nango's code is published under the Elastic License, which is a source available license with restrictions on how you can use and redistribute it, not an OSI approved open source license. Corsair is licensed under Apache 2.0, a fully permissive open source license with no such restrictions. That difference matters the moment your legal or procurement team asks what you are actually allowed to do with the code you are depending on. With Corsair, the answer is straightforward: inspect it, fork it, modify it, redistribute it, and run it however your product needs, because more than 5,500 GitHub stars and an active Discord community are already doing exactly that.

What Is the Total Cost of Ownership of an Automation Platform

Nango's pricing is metered across several dimensions at once. The free tier includes 10 connections and 100,000 proxy requests but limits you to authorization only, without direct access to its integration catalog. The Starter tier starts at $50 a month for 20 connections, then bills $1 per additional connection, plus per request overage once you pass 200,000 proxy requests. The Growth tier starts at $500 a month for 100 connections and adds SOC 2, RBAC, and priority support, features that are unavailable below that price point. Enterprise pricing is negotiated separately.

Corsair prices by team size, not by how many connections, requests, or records you generate. Tool calls are unlimited on every tier, including the free Hobby plan. Hobby is $0 a month for up to 3 team members with 50 connections and 100,000 webhook events. Pro is $200 a month, flat, for unlimited connections, unlimited webhooks, and unlimited team members. Enterprise is custom for teams with more specific requirements. You can see the full breakdown on our pricing page. When your bill does not move every time a customer connects a new account or your agent makes an unusually busy day of tool calls, forecasting your integration costs stops being a spreadsheet exercise.

Should I Build or Buy My Automation Infrastructure

Framed as build versus buy, both platforms actually sit closer to a third option: buy the infrastructure, own the integration logic. The real decision is how much of that infrastructure you want to own outright versus rent under someone else's licensing terms and pricing tiers.

If you want the infrastructure without ever wondering which features are behind a paywall on your own servers, or without needing a lawyer to interpret a source available license before you ship, Corsair removes that ambiguity from the decision. You get the full SDK, permissively licensed, whether you self host it for free or run it through the hosted Hub. For a deeper look at how MCP fits into that infrastructure layer specifically, see our post on how MCP integration benefits your business.

Corsair vs Nango at a Glance

License Corsair: Apache 2.0, a fully permissive open source license. Nango: Elastic License, a source available license with usage restrictions.

Self Hosting Corsair: Full SDK, every feature, free to self host with no gated tier. Nango: Free to self host, but with a limited feature set. Full features require the paid Cloud plan or a negotiated Enterprise Self Hosted agreement.

Credential Storage Corsair: Credentials live in your own database. Corsair itself holds none of them on the hosted Hub. Nango: Credentials are stored and resolved inside Nango's own infrastructure.

Pricing Model Corsair: Flat monthly plans by team size, with unlimited tool calls at every tier, including free. Nango: Metered across connections, proxy requests, compute hours, and records, with overage charges on each dimension.

Entry Pricing Corsair: $0 a month for the full SDK, self hosted, or the Hobby plan on the hosted Hub. Nango: $0 a month for authorization only, with direct integration access requiring a paid plan starting at $50 a month.

Which Platform Should You Choose

If your team is comfortable with a source available license, a multi dimensional pricing model, and paying to unlock the features you would expect a free self hosted plan to already include, Nango is a workable option. If you want a fully open source, permissively licensed integration layer where self hosting means the whole product rather than a limited edition of it, and a pricing plan that does not change shape every time your usage grows, Corsair is built for exactly that.

As an open source integration layer for AI agents, Corsair connects your agents to the tools they need through MCP, keeps every credential inside your own database, and lets you self host the complete SDK for free or scale on a flat plan with unlimited tool calls. There is no reduced tier waiting behind a paywall and no license to interpret before you ship. You get the full product from the first commit, with the freedom to extend it yourself whenever your integration needs something the SDK does not already cover.