MCP directories: where to list your MCP server in 2026

Smithery's notice says its MCP proxy shuts down on 31 October 2026: server URLs on run.tools and server.smithery.ai stop working, and smithery.ai carries on as a plain directory run by Arcade.dev (Smithery). Our own Smithery listing for the Apideck MCP server still pointed at a run.tools deployment that morning. That is the practical case for knowing which MCP directories list you and which of those listings you control.

We have listed the Apideck MCP server in most of these places since April 2026. Every count below is from 31 October 2026.

MCP directories, registries and marketplaces

The official MCP Registry is a metadata service run by the open-source MCP project, so it is not an Anthropic product, though Anthropic created MCP. Its docs describe it as "backed by major trusted contributors to the MCP ecosystem such as Anthropic, GitHub, PulseMCP, and Microsoft". It calls itself "the official centralized metadata repository for publicly accessible MCP servers" and stores pointers to code: which package to install or which remote URL to call, and the environment variables or headers a client needs (MCP docs). It does not rate or review servers. Its docs say it is meant for "downstream aggregators, such as MCP server marketplaces", not for host applications, and that those aggregators should poll it about once an hour and keep their own copy (registry aggregators).

A directory is one of those aggregators, built for people. It adds search and quality signals on top of the raw metadata, and some test your server as well.

A marketplace is built into a client, where a developer is already wiring tools into an agent (we covered one such setup in our NetSuite MCP guide). A curated list is a GitHub README that you get into with a pull request.

The list

1. API Tracker

API Tracker's MCP directory is ours. It shows 165,562 MCP results from several sources, the official registry among them, and for each server which sources carry it and the date each one last saw it. It marks a server "Official" from publisher evidence and says that this is not a security review.

To check your own coverage, open your server's page: the Apideck MCP page on API Tracker lists two sources, both dated 24 October, and version 0.1.13 from the registry. Servers in the registry show up automatically. Anything missing or wrong goes through the submit form, which is free; each request is reviewed for accuracy.

2. Official MCP Registry

Publishing to the registry is the step that feeds the most directories at once. The flow, from the quickstart:

1. Publish your package to a public package registry. Remote-only servers skip this and declare a remotes entry instead.
2. Prove you own the package. For npm that is an mcpName field in package.json matching the server name.
3. Install mcp-publisher (brew install mcp-publisher or the GitHub release binary) and run mcp-publisher init to generate server.json. The description field is capped at 100 characters.
4. Log in and run mcp-publisher publish. mcp-publisher validate checks the file without publishing.

The name you publish under is a verified namespace. GitHub login gives you io.github.<username>/.... Domain verification gives you a reverse-DNS name such as com.apideck/mcp, proven with a DNS TXT record on the apex domain or a key file at /.well-known/mcp-registry-auth (authentication). Use the domain route if you can, because the name travels into every directory that imports from the registry. Publishing to a GitHub organization namespace from the CLI's device login does not work yet; the docs point to GitHub Actions OIDC or a token with read:org.

Versions are immutable, so every change to server.json, a better description included, needs a new version string (FAQ). For remote servers the registry checks your namespace and leaves the URL unverified, so nothing proves that https://mcp.example.com belongs to com.example.

The registry held 53,541 servers on 31 October 2026 by our count of its public API (52,702 of them active), and it is still labelled a preview where "breaking changes or data resets may occur". Ours is com.apideck/mcp, version 0.1.13, published 25 April 2026.

3. Glama

Glama is the largest independent directory: 113,204 open-source servers and 40,151 remote connectors on 31 October. It says it "ingests and re-publishes everything in the official registry" (methodology). Servers come from GitHub repos; connectors are HTTPS endpoints that speak streamable HTTP, and Glama health-checks every one. On 31 October its filters marked 22,362 connectors healthy and 15,392 unhealthy.

Each listing gets graded: license, quality and maintenance for servers, a Tool Definition Quality Score and uptime for connectors. To edit a listing you claim it, which for a repo under a GitHub organization means adding a glama.json file with your maintainers' GitHub usernames to the repo root (glama.json). Listing is free, and Glama sells boosted listings at $49 a month (advertise).

4. PulseMCP

PulseMCP listed 21,614 servers. Its submit page says it is not taking new servers or changing existing listings for now, and asks you to publish to the official registry so it can pick you up when it reopens. Existing listings are frozen in the meantime: our page still shows the tool count from our April registry entry. PulseMCP is run by Tadas Antanavicius, who also works on the official registry, and shows an estimated weekly visitor count per server (about).

5. MCP Market

MCP Market showed 50,999 servers on its homepage. Submission is a GitHub repo URL. The free queue quotes an average of four to six weeks, and $29 one-time gets you listed within 24 hours with an Official badge (submit). It may already list you from GitHub: ours was there unclaimed, describing "20+ business systems" where we connect 200+.

6. cursor.directory

cursor.directory is the community catalog Cursor's own docs send people to for community plugins and MCP servers (Cursor docs). You submit a GitHub repo and it detects the plugin, following the Agent Plugins format (open-plugins.com now redirects there). The listing shows the exact client config, which is the part a developer copies.

7. Cursor Marketplace

The Cursor Marketplace linked about 490 plugins on 31 October. Plugins must be open source, every plugin and every update is reviewed by hand, and Cursor says it works directly with plugin authors it trusts while its vetting standards mature (marketplace security). Getting in starts with a publisher application.

8. awesome-mcp-servers

awesome-mcp-servers has 97,106 GitHub stars and about 4,600 server entries. It takes one-line pull requests for servers with a public repo; remote-only servers go to a sister list. A CI check asks every new entry to be listed on Glama with a score badge first. The queue held 3,857 open pull requests on 31 October. Our entry was merged in April and is no longer in the README, so check yours after the merge as well.

9. Smithery

Smithery still lists servers, 27,365 by its homepage count. Its notice says accounts, API keys and the CLI stop with the proxy, and it does not say how new servers get added to the Arcade-run directory. If you have a Smithery listing, check whether it still points at a run.tools or server.smithery.ai URL.

If you used Smithery Connect

Connect and Toolbox go too, and the current SDK versions are marked deprecated. Paid subscriptions are cancelled and refunded back to 5 August 2026, the day Arcade announced it had acquired Smithery. What stays is the directory, and for a curated set of verified servers the listing page now shows the vendor's own MCP URL.

For anyone who connected through Smithery, the job is to find every Smithery address in client configs and point it somewhere that still answers. Each client documents where its MCP config lives. This checks the default files for Claude Code and Cursor; add .vscode/mcp.json or ~/.codex/config.toml if you use those clients, and run the same pattern over your own code and deploy scripts:

grep -nEi 'run\.tools|server\.smithery\.ai|api\.smithery\.ai|@smithery/' \
  ~/.claude.json .mcp.json ~/.cursor/mcp.json .cursor/mcp.json 2>/dev/null

Point each match at the vendor's official endpoint (ours is https://mcp.apideck.dev/mcp). If the vendor has none, run its package yourself or route it through a gateway you already use. Expect to authorize each vendor again, since Connect managed the credentials. Then watch what your agents return for a day or two: an agent tends to work around a missing tool, so the first symptom can be a weaker answer with no error in the logs. If you manage connections for many users, o11's Smithery Connect migration guide includes a redacting audit script.

10. Microsoft MCP Center

Microsoft's MCP Center is a curated showcase of about 110 servers (109 in its registry API) that Azure customers can copy into a private registry built on Azure API Center (Azure/mcp-center). You apply by commenting on a GitHub issue with your server's details, and Microsoft says onboarding takes one to two weeks. The old address, mcp.azure.com, did not resolve on 31 October; the catalog was live at mcp.microsoft.com.

11. goose

goose, the open-source agent now under the Agentic AI Foundation, lists 57 extensions in its extensions directory. It no longer takes new third-party servers: the goose repo's contributor notes say the project is retiring its own directory in favor of the official MCP Registry and its server.json format, and ask server authors to publish there instead (discussion).

12. Prowl

Prowl indexes APIs and services for agents rather than MCP servers as such. It crawls them, benchmarks them and lets vendors claim a listing by verifying their domain. Claim it if agents calling your API matters more to you than developers installing your server.

One place that no longer belongs on any list: the official modelcontextprotocol/servers repo. Its third-party list "has been retired in favor of the Registry", it keeps seven reference servers, and it takes issues only (CONTRIBUTING).

The numbers side by side

#	Where	Type	Listed (31 Oct 2026)	How to get in	Review	Cost
1	API Tracker (ours)	Directory	165,562 results	Imports the registry, or submit form	Manual, each request	Free
2	MCP Registry	Registry	53,541 (API count)	mcp-publisher CLI, verified namespace	Automated	Free
3	Glama	Directory	113,204 servers, 40,151 connectors	Imports the registry, or add a repo or URL	Automated checks	Free, $49/month boost
4	PulseMCP	Directory	21,614	Imports the registry (form closed)	n/a while closed	n/a while closed
5	MCP Market	Directory	50,999	Form with GitHub repo	4 to 6 weeks, or 24 hours paid	Free or $29
6	cursor.directory	Directory	Not read	GitHub repo, Agent Plugins format	Not stated	Free
7	Cursor Marketplace	Marketplace	about 490 plugins	Publisher application	Manual, every update	Not stated
8	awesome-mcp-servers	Curated list	about 4,610 entries	Pull request plus Glama badge	Maintainer review	Free
9	Smithery	Directory	27,365	Unclear after 31 Oct	n/a	n/a
10	Microsoft MCP Center	Showcase	109 (API count)	Comment on a GitHub issue	Manual, 1 to 2 weeks	Not stated
11	goose	Client list	57 extensions	Closed; moving to the registry	n/a	n/a
12	Prowl	Agent index	Not shown	Crawled, claim by domain	Automated benchmarks	Free listing, paid benchmarks

Counts are the figures each site showed on 31 October 2026, except the registry and Microsoft MCP Center (counted from their APIs), awesome-mcp-servers (entries counted in the README) and the Cursor Marketplace (plugins counted on the page). Directories count different things, and several include duplicates and dead repos, so read them as orders of magnitude.

Keep the listings true

Listings drift after you submit: on 31 October our registry entry described 330 tools while PulseMCP still showed the 229 from our first April version. None of that was visible from our own docs.

Publish to the official registry under your own domain namespace, then claim your Glama and MCP Market listings in the same week. Book a quarterly check that opens each listing, starting from your API Tracker page, and compares it with your latest server.json. Bump the registry version whenever your tool list changes, since the directories that import it only refresh what the registry tells them. If your agents read and write customer data in accounting, HRIS or CRM systems (the problem behind our post on accounting APIs for AI agents), the Apideck MCP server covers 200+ connectors from one endpoint.