Smithery review: a registry of MCP tools for AI agents (2026)

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Smithery marketplace home page, October 2026

Smithery is a large, free-to-browse registry of MCP servers - the connectors that let an AI agent use tools such as Gmail, HubSpot or web search - plus a library of agent skills. It is built for developers and technical teams putting their own agents together. Browsing and the Hobby plan are free, and the next plan up is $10 a month. The catalogue is huge, but vetting is light and UK detail is thin. I rate it ★★★☆☆ 3/5.

Last updated 21 October 2026. Written by Annie, a search and digital marketing specialist. Based on the public store, pricing pages and documentation; I did not create an account or test agents. See the editorial policy.

Key facts

  • What it is: A registry and connection service for MCP servers and agent skills
  • Made by: Clavia, Inc., trading as Smithery. Parent company Arcade.dev (Arcade AI, Inc.) since August 2026
  • Launched: By December 2024 - the oldest listing I found was published on 13 December 2024
  • Size: 15,287 MCP servers and 25,229 skills listed (16 October 2026). About 246,900 visits in the three months to September 2026 (Similarweb)
  • Price: Free to browse. Hobby plan free. Pay as you Go $10 a month (about £7.52)
  • Best for: Developers and technical small teams connecting agents to everyday business apps
  • Available in the UK: Yes. I found no country restrictions. Prices are in US dollars
  • Seller commission: None mentioned. The publishing docs list no fees and no revenue share
  • Our rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5

On this page

What is Smithery?

Smithery lists MCP servers. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is a standard way for an AI agent to call outside tools. Each server adds a set of tools, such as reading email, searching the web or looking up a CRM record. The browse page showed 15,287 servers when I checked, and the homepage claims more than 27,000. There is also a skills library with 25,229 entries.

It does more than list things. A service called Smithery Connect handles sign-in to each tool, stores your credentials and keeps connections running. You add servers to a "toolbox" and use them from an MCP-ready app, or through Smithery's API and command-line tool. Smithery sells tools for agents, not finished agents.

The big 2026 change is ownership. On 5 August 2026 Arcade.dev announced it had acquired Smithery, and co-founder Anirudh Kamath joined Arcade. The site still runs under the Smithery name. The announcement did not mention any changes to pricing or the registry.

Who owns Smithery?

  • Smithery is run by Clavia, Inc., which trades as Smithery.
  • Its parent company is Arcade.dev (Arcade AI, Inc.), a US company. Arcade announced the deal on 5 August 2026 and did not disclose the terms.
  • The co-founders are Henry Mao, the CEO, and Anirudh Kamath, who has since joined Arcade.
  • Smithery's GitHub organisation lists its location as the United States.
  • The registry was live by December 2024. The oldest listing I found, Exa Search, was published on 13 December 2024.
  • Both companies are private. Arcade raised a $12 million seed round in March 2024, led by Laude Ventures. I found no figure for Smithery's own funding.

Smithery has a very large catalogue, though its website traffic is modest.

  • About 246,900 visits in the three months to September 2026, according to Similarweb. Traffic fell 19.49% on the month before.
  • The biggest audiences were the US (18.11%) and China (14.99%), per Similarweb for September 2026. The UK was not in the top five.
  • 15,287 MCP servers on the browse page and 25,229 skills on 16 October 2026. The homepage claimed more than 27,000 MCPs on the same day.
  • The most used listing on the browse page, Brave Search, showed 87.57k uses on 16 October 2026. Gmail showed 57.73k.

How much does Smithery cost?

Browsing the registry is free, and the paid plans cover the managed connection service.

Plan or feePriceWhat you get
HobbyFree50K RPCs a month, 3 namespaces, managed sign-in (OAuth), persistent connections
Pay as you Go$10 a month (about £7.52)100K RPCs a month from your $10 credit, then $0.10 per 1,000 (about 8p). 100 namespaces
CustomContact SmitheryEverything in Pay as you Go, plus custom rate limits, an uptime SLA and Slack support

RPCs are, roughly, the requests your agent sends through Smithery. The pricing page does not say whether VAT is included. Smithery takes no commission on listed servers, because it does not sell them. Servers with paid tiers, such as DevMatch, set their own prices.

Hidden costs

  • Some servers need your own paid account with the underlying service. The Brave Search listing asks you to bring your own Brave Search API subscription token.
  • Some servers have their own paid tiers. DevMatch offers 50 free credits a month and a $129 a month Pro tier (about £97).
  • On Pay as you Go, use beyond your $10 credit costs $0.10 per 1,000 RPCs (about 8p).
  • Smithery supplies the connections, not the AI model. You still pay for your own AI app or API.
  • Prices are in US dollars and the pricing page does not mention VAT.

Best agents to try on Smithery

Smithery lists tools for agents rather than finished agents, so these are the servers I would connect first.

AgentMade byWhat it doesPrice
GmailSmithery teamReads, searches and sends email, and manages drafts, labels and threads. Quality score 96/100Free to add. Needs a Google account
Google CalendarSmithery teamCreates and updates events, answers invitations and finds times when everyone is free. Quality score 85/100Free to add. Needs a Google account
HubSpotSmithery teamSearches contacts, deals, tickets and company details in your HubSpot CRM. Quality score 70/100Free to add. Needs a HubSpot account
NotionSmithery teamSearches pages, databases and people in your Notion workspace. Quality score 84/100Free to add. Needs a Notion account
Exa SearchExaWeb search and crawling. Marked Verified, MIT licence. Quality score 90/100Free to add

Selling your agent on Smithery

  • Who can list: Anyone with a Smithery account can publish an MCP server.
  • How: Give Smithery the public web address of a server you host yourself, or upload a bundle that people run on their own computer. There is also a command-line tool and an API.
  • Approval: The docs describe no manual review. Smithery scans your server automatically to pull its tools and prompts into the listing page.
  • Verification: After publishing, owners can complete an automatic checklist to be verified as the official vendor.
  • Payment: There is no revenue share and no payout system. Smithery offers distribution and usage analytics. If you charge, you do it through your own service.

What other people rate it

I found no meaningful third-party star rating. G2 has a Smithery listing with 0 reviews (G2, checked 16 October 2026). The Product Hunt page showed no star rating when I checked on 16 October 2026.

What's good

  • A very large catalogue: 15,287 servers on the browse page and 25,229 skills when I checked.
  • The Hobby plan is free with 50K RPCs a month, and the paid plan starts at $10 a month.
  • Credentials are encrypted and write-only. Smithery can use them to make requests, but they cannot be read back.
  • Each listing shows a quality score out of 100 and a usage count. Gmail had 57.73k uses.
  • Popular business tools such as Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot and Notion are maintained by the Smithery team itself.
  • The documentation is public and detailed, with a full API reference.

What's not so good

  • Anyone can publish and there is no manual review. Only 192 servers were marked Verified in Smithery's own registry search.
  • It is built for developers. Terms like namespaces, RPCs and MCP clients will put off a non-technical owner.
  • In June 2025 security firm GitGuardian found a flaw that exposed a token controlling more than 3,000 hosted apps. Smithery fixed it within two days and there was no sign of misuse.
  • The privacy notice dates from June 2025, says nothing about UK GDPR or where data is stored, and its "Data Policy" link led to a page not found.
  • The Arcade.dev deal leaves the long-term plan unclear. The announcement did not say what will change.

Who is it for?

Smithery suits developers, agencies building agents for clients, and technically confident owners who already use an MCP-ready app such as Claude or Cursor. It is a good place to find a connector for a tool you already pay for.

Skip it if you want a ready-made agent that does a job out of the box. Skip it too if you need clear answers on UK data storage before you connect business accounts.

Using it in the UK

I found no country restrictions in the pricing page or the docs. The privacy notice mentions sign-in with accounts such as Google, and says payments go through Stripe.

Prices are in US dollars. The pricing page does not mention VAT, so check your invoice if you need to reclaim it.

The privacy notice is from a US company, Clavia, Inc. It does not mention UK GDPR, international transfers or data location. It does say Smithery may share personal data with the developers of servers you use, and that partners' tools on the site may record clicks and keystrokes.

Each server you connect is run by its publisher. For servers published by web address, Smithery passes your requests on to the publisher's own server. Your data reaches that third party too, so check who made a server before you connect a business account.

Interesting facts about Smithery

  • The company leans into its blacksmith name. Its published values include "The anvil fears no blows".
  • Smithery's founder Henry Mao gave a talk at the AI Engineer World's Fair 2025 called "Are MCPs Overhyped? A Rant about MCPs".
  • Smithery's command-line tool has ngrok built in, so developers can test a server on their own computer without an ngrok account. Smithery covers the ngrok costs.
  • The catalogue is growing fast. The AI Engineer site recorded more than 17,300 MCPs on Smithery in August 2026. By mid-October the homepage claimed more than 27,000.

Alternatives to Smithery

  • Dify Marketplace - pick it if you want free, reviewed plugins for building agents in Dify rather than raw connectors.
  • Apify Store - pick it if your agent mainly needs ready-to-run web scraping and data extraction tools.
  • AI Agents Directory - pick it if you want to compare finished agents rather than connect tools to your own.

Our rating

AreaScore
Choice4/5
Pricing clarity4/5
Getting started2/5
Trust and safety3/5
UK fit2/5
Overall★★★☆☆ 3/5

Smithery is the biggest place to find MCP connectors, with fair and simple pricing. Stick to Verified or Smithery-maintained servers, and look elsewhere if you are not technical.

Frequently asked questions

Is Smithery free?

Browsing is free, and the Hobby plan is free with 50K RPCs a month. The Pay as you Go plan costs $10 a month (about £7.52), and some servers charge for their own service.

Is Smithery safe to use?

Credentials are stored encrypted and cannot be read back. But anyone can publish a server and there is no manual review, so stick to Verified or Smithery-maintained servers with a high quality score.

Who owns Smithery?

Arcade.dev, a US company, announced it had acquired Smithery on 5 August 2026. The site still trades as Smithery, and co-founder Henry Mao is listed as CEO.

Sources

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