Feature Comparison
Honest side-by-side. We highlight where Smithery wins on scale and where we win on verification depth.
| Feature | My MCP Shelf | Smithery |
|---|---|---|
| Total listed servers | 4,200+ | 7,000+ |
| Self-hostable / local stdio servers Smithery is cloud-hosted; we cover local, remote, and SaaS. | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
| Vendor-agnostic (no lock-in) Smithery hosts on their infra; we point you to the source. | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Security scan results published per server Smithery does not publish detailed per-server security grades. | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
| Execution test harness (handshake + tool calls) | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Staleness pulse (commit velocity, issue health) | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Green hosting / carbon footprint checks | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Data residency documented | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
| Embedddable live status badges | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Public JSON API + installable MCP server | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
| Agent-specific config snippets | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Remote-server auth method taxonomy | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Enterprise SaaS deployment guide | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
Common Questions
Is Smithery easier to set up?
Yes — if you want zero configuration. Smithery runs servers for you. My MCP Shelf is for teams that want to audit, self-host, or integrate servers into their own infrastructure.
Can I run Smithery servers locally?
Smithery is primarily a hosted platform. We specialize in helping you find and run servers locally, in your VPC, or in your chosen cloud provider.
Which is better for enterprise?
If you need SOC 2, custom compliance, or VPC deployment, our self-hosted and enterprise-SaaS sections are designed for that. Smithery is optimized for speed-to-first-use.
Need control, not just convenience?
Find servers you can host yourself — with security grades, execution tests, and per-agent config snippets.