The Model Context Protocol (MCP) — open-sourced by Anthropic in late 2024 — has become the standard way AI agents connect to external tools, APIs, and data sources. By mid-2026 the ecosystem has matured into two distinct layers: registries (where you discover servers) and servers themselves (the connectors). This guide covers the four most-used platforms and how to pick between them. All data comes from our MCP servers directory, which now lists 43 servers.
What MCP actually does
Before comparing platforms, it helps to be precise about the layer you’re shopping for:
- An MCP registry is a catalog — it helps you find servers (a GitHub connector, a Postgres connector, a Slack connector) and often hosts them.
- An MCP server is the connector itself — the running code that exposes a tool or data source to an agent over the protocol.
The platforms below blur this line: most offer both discovery and hosting. That’s convenient, but it’s why they compete despite doing slightly different things.
The four platforms compared
| Platform | Type | Pricing | Strength | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Composio | Hosted servers + tools | Freemium | Production-grade hosted tools | Teams shipping agents that act |
| Smithery | Registry + hosting | Free | Largest curated registry | Discovering and trying servers |
| MCP.so | Directory | Free | Community-curated discovery | Browsing what exists |
| Glama | Registry + gateway | Freemium | Managed gateway/connectivity | Running servers at scale |
Composio — the production hosted-tool layer
Composio goes furthest: it doesn’t just list servers, it hosts a wide range of tools (GitHub, Slack, email, calendars, and hundreds more) and exposes them to agents in a managed, authenticated way. It’s the highest-rated option in our directory.
Where it wins: if your agent needs to do things — file issues, send messages, update a CRM — Composio’s hosted, authenticated tools remove the bulk of the integration work. It’s built for production, not just experimentation.
Where it falls short: the managed layer means less control than self-hosting, and advanced usage moves to paid tiers.
Smithery — the registry most people start with
Smithery is the registry that comes up first when you search for MCP servers. It indexes a large number of servers, makes them installable with a single command, and hosts many of them.
Where it wins: discovery and one-line install. For a developer just exploring what’s possible, Smithery is the fastest path from “I want a connector” to “it’s running.”
Where it falls short: quality varies across the registry — some servers are production-grade, others are weekend experiments. You’re doing the quality filtering yourself.
MCP.so — the community directory
MCP.so is a lighter-weight, community-curated directory. Less infrastructure than Smithery or Composio, more of a “browse what people have built” resource.
Where it wins: a good place to discover niche servers and see what the community is building. Free and no commitment.
Where it falls short: least polished of the four, and no managed hosting layer.
Glama — the managed gateway
Glama focuses on the connectivity layer — a managed gateway that lets you run and route to many MCP servers reliably, with auth and observability handled.
Where it wins: if you’re operating multiple servers in production and need a gateway with monitoring, Glama is purpose-built for that operational problem.
Where it falls short: more than a casual experimenter needs. The gateway value only pays off at scale.
How to choose
- You’re shipping agents that need to take real actions → Composio
- You want to discover and try servers fast → Smithery
- You want to browse the community ecosystem → MCP.so
- You operate servers in production and need a gateway → Glama
Self-hosting vs. managed
A recurring decision with MCP is whether to self-host a server or use a managed platform. Self-hosting (most servers are open source) gives full control and zero per-call cost, but you own auth, uptime, and updates. Managed platforms (Composio, Glama) remove that operational burden for a fee. For prototypes and low traffic, self-host; for production agents, the managed trade-off usually wins.
Read the full breakdown on each platform’s review page, or compare any two side-by-side.
Maintained by the AgentRadar editorial team. The MCP ecosystem moves quickly — check each platform’s page for the latest server count and features.