If you’ve been reading this series, but you haven’t yet used or built your own MCP server yet, what are you waiting for?
(no really, I’m curious)
Today’s installment is going to focus on how to find the servers that are already out there, as well as where you can publish your own.Â
What happened to registry.modelcontextprotocol.io?
A few weeks ago, I mentioned and linked to this registry site in the very first post in this series, #1 What devs should know about MCP?. When I did, it was up and running, but since then it’s been pulled down for revamping. Their GitHub repo is quite active, and pushing hard for a new “go-live” which I’m assuming means that the domain registry.modelcontextprotocol.io will be coming back online eventually. (I’ll try to remember to update these links if it moves to a new location)
gemini image from prompt: an official-ish looking server registry for model context protocol servers in cyberpunk style
An “Official”-ish List of MCP Servers
Until that registry “goes-live”, you can still find the list it will be based on under the same GitHub org if not in the exact same repo, available at https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/servers
If someone asked me where they should go to “get their hands dirty” with MCP, this is where I’d send them. Not only does this list start with all the language SDKs for building your own servers, at the bottom of the list it includes a variety of resources for learning more.Â
An entire MCP bootcamp course could be built on just stepping through the details contained in this one README.Â
Lists & Tools
Listing sites are popping up all over the place. These are just the first ones listed for me by google.Â
MCP CLI
If you want a CLI to install MCP servers like packages, you might enjoy mcp-cli from developer @aurracloud on npm. After globally installing this gives you an `mcp` command that can be followed with commands like `install`/`uninstall`, `list` or `info`.Â
In theory this makes MCP servers as easy to install or uninstall as using a package manager (like homebrew). It also uses Docker, which can give some protection through environment isolation. As neat as this project looks, it doesn’t seem to be very popular yet. It also doesn’t really have a discovery feature, so you need to already know about the MCP servers that you want to install.Â
And then there was Glama.ai
image: Glama logo from glama.ai
As the protocol matures, expect to see more “official”-ish repositories develop over time. For the most extensive and robust of these, definitely check out Glama.Â
Glama is primarily a searchable registry that boasts its ability to find and list “ALL the MCP servers”. (I can personally attest that I received a PR from Glama to include my atproto-docs MCP server in its registry less than 24 hours after pushing it to GitHub.)Â
Glama’s search conveniently lets you filter by features/description, tags, or license type. If I'm wondering “has someone created an MCP for xyz use case yet?” then Glama’s registry would be the first place I’d search.Â
Glama doesn’t stop at listing out the servers however, it also offers a full suite of AI features. You can spin up MCP servers in remote environments, deploy your own servers to it, as well as use its agent and api tools to create custom agents and integrations. With their Free tier, you can experiment with running up to 3 of your own (ephemeral) MCP servers.Â
Glama has also spawned active communities on Discord and Reddit, where developers are sharing and discussing what MCP servers they are working on, or wish to see in the ecosystem.Â
A registry of registries
image: screenshot from mastra.ai
If somehow you still need one more place to search for MCP servers, then last but not least on today’s list is the mastra.ai MCP Registry Registry, which is as it sounds, a list of all the MCP registries.Â
For example if you wanted to only search for MCPs that work with Cursor, there’s a Cursor registry on this list. Similarly apps like Zapier have also created their own registries of MCP servers that directly integrate with their APIs. These registries can be found on mastra.ai. Â
Next time on “MCP for Curious Devs”...
I’d love to hear from readers of these posts, where are you finding your favorite MCP servers?Â
I’m curious to hear about that and any other feedback you have about this MCP series, so feel free to DM me on Bluesky @immber.bsky.social!
Having exhausted my initial set of ideas for this series, I’m open to topic suggestions. I might just wrap up this series and call it complete if I don’t get any topic suggestions or requests, as that must mean that I have answered all of your burning MCP questions.
Did I, or do you have more?