Are MCP servers free?
Most are. The protocol is open and the majority of servers are MIT or Apache licensed. You pay only when a server calls a paid API or service on your behalf.
Free MCP servers
The Model Context Protocol itself is free and open, and most MCP servers are open-source projects you can run on your own machine without paying anything.
What can cost money is what sits behind a server: a search or scraping API with its own plan, a SaaS account, or the AI client you connect from. This page separates the two free paths — hosted endpoints that need no sign-in, and open-source servers you run yourself.
Free hosted endpoints — no sign-in
Remote MCP servers that answer without OAuth or an API key. Paste the URL into your client and they work; nothing to install.
PS
Parallel Search
Parallel Search
Real-time web search and content extraction
Added 4 months ago
OT
Open Targets
Open Targets
Drug target discovery data
Added 4 months ago
tldraw
tldraw
Diagrams and whiteboards
Added 4 months ago
L
lastminute.com
lastminute.com
Flights, hotels, holiday packages
Added 4 months ago
MDN
MDN
Web docs, search, and browser compatibility data
Added 4 months ago
YF
Yahoo Finance
Yahoo Finance
Stock data, market news, financials, and price history
Added 4 months ago
B
B12
B12
AI website generation
Added 4 months ago
K
Kiwi.com
Kiwi.com
Flight search and travel
Added 4 months ago
Popular open-source servers you can run for free
The most-starred local servers in the directory. The code is free to run; a few wrap paid APIs, so check the listing for an API key requirement before you rely on one.
Aws Kb Retrieval Server
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.2K
Redis
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.2K
Sequential Thinking
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.2K
Time
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.2K
Brave Search
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
EverArt
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Fetch
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Filesystem
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Git
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
GitLab
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Github
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Google Drive
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Google Maps
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Memory
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
PostgreSQL
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Puppeteer
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Sentry
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Slack
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Sqlite
modelcontextprotocol
Model Context Protocol Servers
Added 2 years ago
88.1K
Context7 MCP - Up-to-date Docs For Any Cursor Prompt
upstash
Context7 Platform -- Up-to-date code documentation for LLMs and AI code editors
Added 2 years ago
58.7K
CD
Chrome DevTools for agents
ChromeDevTools
Official Chrome DevTools MCP server from Google that lets coding agents control, debug and profile a live Chrome browser.
Added 12 days ago
53.6K
Hindsight
vectorize-io
Hindsight: Agent Memory That Learns
Added 14 days ago
50.4K
妙问
zhayujie
Open-source personal AI assistant & Agent Harness. Plans tasks, runs tools and skills, self-evolves with memory and knowledge. Multi-agent, multi-model, multi-channel. Lightweight, extensible, one-line install.
Added 2 years ago
47.3K
Codebase Memory
DeusData
High-performance code intelligence MCP server. Indexes codebases into a persistent knowledge graph — average repo in milliseconds. 162 languages, sub-ms queries, 99% fewer tokens. Single static binary, zero dependencies.
Added 14 days ago
46.7K
Reactive Resume
amruthpillai
A one-of-a-kind resume builder that keeps your privacy in mind. Completely secure, customizable, portable, open-source and free forever. Try it out today!
Added 4 months ago
39.5K
1Panel
1Panel-dev
🔥 1Panel is a modern, open-source VPS control panel — and the only one with native AI agent support. Run Ollama models, deploy OpenClaw agents, and manage your entire server stack from one clean web interface.
Added 2 years ago
36.1K
Playwright Mcp
microsoft
Playwright MCP server
Added 2 years ago
34.8K
Github Mcp Server
github
GitHub's official MCP Server
Added 2 years ago
31.3K
🔎 GPT Researcher
assafelovic
An autonomous agent that conducts deep research on any data using any LLM providers
Added last year
28.1K
Serena
oraios
A powerful MCP toolkit for coding, providing semantic retrieval and editing capabilities - the IDE for your agent
Added 2 years ago
26.2K
FastMCP v2 🚀
jlowin
🚀 The fast, Pythonic way to build MCP servers and clients.
Added 2 years ago
26.0K
Blender
ahujasid
Open-source MCP to use Blender with any LLM
Added 2 years ago
23.6K
Activepieces
activepieces
AI Agents & MCPs & AI Workflow Automation • (~400 MCP servers for AI agents) • AI Automation / AI Agent with MCPs • AI Workflows & AI Agents • MCPs for AI Agents
Added last year
23.2K
Screenpipe
screenpipe
YC (S26) | Open Computer History | Continuously record your company computer work, map your workflows, help you find work worth automating, and power your agents' context
Added 14 days ago
22.0K
MaxKB
1Panel-dev
🔥 MaxKB is an open-source platform for building enterprise-grade agents. 强大易用的开源企业级智能体平台。
Added 2 years ago
22.0K
FunASR
modelscope
Open-source speech recognition toolkit for training, inference, streaming ASR, VAD, punctuation, speaker diarization pipelines, and OpenAI-compatible/MCP serving.
Added 14 days ago
20.7K
How to tell whether a server is really free
- Open the listing and look at the auth line: “no auth” endpoints cost nothing to call; OAuth means your account on that service (and its plan) applies.
- For local servers, check the config for an env variable like API_KEY — that is the paid dependency, not the server.
- Browser, filesystem, git and database servers usually run entirely on your machine with no third-party bill.
- Your AI client may have its own subscription; MCP support is included in free tiers of several clients.
Free MCP servers FAQ
Free MCP servers you can use today: hosted endpoints that need no sign-in, and the most-starred open-source servers you can run locally at no cost.
What is the best free MCP server to start with?
A local browser automation server such as Playwright MCP or a filesystem server: both run on your machine, need no account and show quickly what MCP adds to an AI client.
Do free remote MCP servers need an account?
The ones in the first list do not — they accept anonymous requests. Many other remote servers are free to connect but ask you to sign in so they can act on your own data.
Can I use free MCP servers with Claude, Cursor or VS Code?
Yes. Any MCP-compatible client can connect to them; each listing shows the setup command or JSON config for the common clients.