MCP Server Directories: Where to List Your Server and What Each One Checks

If you have shipped an MCP server, the next question is where people find it. There are now dozens of sites calling themselves an MCP directory, registry, marketplace or catalog, and they are not the same kind of thing. Some are the source other sites copy from. Some host your server for you. Some are a form that copies your GitHub README and puts an ad next to it. A few are closed, empty, or gone.

We run a remote MCP server ourselves (it lets an agent run MentionAgent's outreach from Claude Code or Cursor), so we did the submission round for real and kept notes. This page is those notes: every directory we could open, its Domain Rating, how you get in, whether it checks that you own what you submit, what a paid listing costs, and whether our own server was there when we looked. The method is the one we used for AI directory submission: open the submit page, record what it says, and write "could not check" when a site blocks the crawl rather than guessing.

Four kinds of directory

The word covers four things, and the submission route tells you which one you are looking at.

• Registries hold structured data (a server.json) behind an API. Clients and other directories read from them. There is one that matters, the official MCP Registry, and you publish to it from a CLI after proving you own your namespace.
• Marketplaces host or proxy the server and can run it for a user. Smithery proxies your URL through its gateway; LobeHub installs into its own client; Docker's catalog packages local servers as images and lists remote ones.
• Curated directories review what comes in. Anthropic's Connectors Directory and Glama's connectors are the two with a real bar; Anthropic's is a portal inside a Team or Enterprise organization with seven policy acknowledgments.
• Listing sites take a form or a GitHub URL, copy the README, and publish. Some sell a faster queue and a dofollow link. Their counts are large because they crawl GitHub, and they import from the registry on their own, so being in the registry gets you into several of them without a form.

The table

Sorted by Domain Rating. "Verifies ownership" means the site has a mechanism that proves the submitter controls the server or its domain, not that it reviews quality. "Listed" is whether a search for our server name found it on the day; "not found" means the site has no search and its pages did not mention us; "not submitted" means the route needs work on our side first.

Not in the table because they are not directories you submit to: Composio, Pipedream and Apify, which publish MCP servers for their own integrations. See what is not a directory.

The official registry

The MCP Registry is run by the protocol's maintainers and is still labelled a preview, with a warning that data resets may occur. It is the one entry that other sites read: mcp.directory's submit page says it imports from it automatically, and PulseMCP's closed submissions page tells you to publish there as "the best first step". So it is first in the order for a reason that has nothing to do with its own traffic.

Publishing is a CLI, mcp-publisher, and a server.json that describes the server. A remote server is a remotes entry with a streamable-http URL and the headers it needs; a package server points at npm or PyPI, and the registry checks that the package's metadata names it back. Your server's name is a namespace plus a slug. io.github.you/your-server needs a GitHub login. A domain namespace like ours, ai.mentionagent/mentionagent, needs proof that you control the domain, by a DNS TXT record or by serving a file at /.well-known/mcp-registry-auth that carries an Ed25519 public key. We chose the HTTP route; the private key stays off the server and is only used to run mcp-publisher login http.

There is no fee and no human review; validation is automatic. Our entry went live on 11 September 2026 and shows as active with the bearer-key header documented, which is the whole of what a client needs to connect.

Glama

Glama is the largest independent index that is not just a GitHub crawl, though it is mostly that: 86,486 servers on the day. Remote servers are a separate section called Connectors, and this is where ownership is real. You claim a connector by serving /.well-known/glama.json with a token bound to your Glama account. Once claimed, Glama re-checks the file periodically and runs a health probe against your URL; removing the file un-claims the listing.

The probe is worth knowing about before you claim. It calls the server without credentials, so a server that requires a key on every request, as ours does, answers 401 and the listing reads "Unhealthy" with the timestamp of the last test. On 13 September at 09:35 UTC that is exactly what ours said, with "Ownership verified" on the line above it. The claim flow lets you supply health-check credentials, which is the fix, and something to do before you send anyone the link.

Smithery and LobeHub

Smithery is a marketplace, now part of Arcade.dev, that lists 715 servers. You add a hosted server by URL: "bring your own hosting, Smithery Gateway proxies to your upstream server". It needs streamable HTTP and, if your server authenticates, OAuth. Smithery scans the endpoint to read the tools; where the scan cannot get through, you publish a static server card at /.well-known/mcp/server-card.json. After listing, a Verification page in the server's settings walks through an official-vendor checklist. Free. Our server was not in its registry API's results.

LobeHub claims the biggest number on any page we opened, 97,711 servers, and publishes through a CLI, lhm, with a browser login and a GitHub connection that stands in for ownership. We had not submitted, and it had found us anyway: the Claude skill repository that wraps our server is listed, dated 11 September, with the flag "Unvalidated". That is the pattern with the crawl-based sites: you are in them before you decide to be, and the useful act is claiming, not submitting.

Anthropic and Docker

Anthropic's Connectors Directory is the one users of Claude see inside the product, and it has the highest bar. Submissions go through a portal in your organization's settings on Claude.ai, which means a Team or Enterprise plan; individual plans have no organization settings. The published requirements: every tool must carry a title and a readOnlyHint or destructiveHint, authenticated servers must use OAuth 2.0, and you provide documentation, a privacy policy URL, an icon and a test account a reviewer can use end to end. Seven policy acknowledgments, covering prompt injection and conversation data collection among others, are all required. No fee is stated. Review time "varies with queue volume". Our server authenticates with a bearer API key rather than OAuth, so as it stands it does not qualify, and that is a fair description of a lot of small remote servers.

Docker's MCP Catalog takes both local servers, built as images from a Dockerfile in your repo, and remote ones, which need no Dockerfile and are described as streamable HTTP or SSE. Either way it is a pull request to the docker/mcp-registry repository with a server.yaml, CI must pass, and "every pull request requires a review from the Docker team", with test credentials shared through a form. The licence has to allow consumption (MIT and Apache 2 are named as fine, GPL as not). Free.

The listing sites

Below the marketplaces sit the form-based directories. Two of them sell the same thing at the same price. mcp.so (DR 73 by our check; its own page says 72 and quotes 2.2 million unique visitors a year) takes a repository URL for free, or $39 one-time to publish immediately without review, with a verified badge, featured placement and a dofollow link. mcpservers.org (DR 71) has a free queue of up to two weeks and a $39 one-time Premium: review within 24 hours, an official badge, priority in search and a dofollow link, which its own form describes as "DR 71". Its form is the more complete one, with a field for your official registry name and a checkbox for remote support.

The pairing is the tell: on both sites the paid tier includes the dofollow link, so the free listing's link is not one. If you are buying, you are buying a link on a DR 71 to 73 page for $39, and the question is the same as for any software listing site: does the page you land on rank for anything, or is it one of tens of thousands?

mcp.directory (DR 38) is the most automated of the free ones: a GitHub repository URL, metadata pulled from it, tools detected by reading the server's implementation, install snippets generated for the major clients, published within 24 hours. It also imports from the official registry on its own and lets you claim an entry for a verified badge. A repository is required, so a closed-source hosted server needs at least a public repo to point at, which is what our skill repository does for us. AgenticSkills (DR 12) has a real form that accepts either a repository or an MCP URL and asks which clients you support; free listings are reviewed, featured placement is by enquiry. MCP Store (DR 26) wants a GitHub or Google login before it shows the form and claims 40,000 servers.

The rest, on the day: mcpservers.com and MCP Server Finder have "submit" links that do not lead to a form; Claude Directory, MCP Server Spot and mcpservers.io show no submit route at all; and three domains that rank for the phrase, mcpindex.net, claudemcp.com and mcp-server-directory.com, did not respond. A directory that cannot be submitted to is a directory somebody stopped running.

The GitHub lists

Three README lists carry DR 97 because they sit on github.com: punkpeye's awesome-mcp-servers, jaw9c's awesome-remote-mcp-servers, and the community section of the modelcontextprotocol/servers repository. Each is a pull request. None verifies anything beyond the maintainer reading your line. The remote list is the one that fits a hosted server and it carries a badge that reads from Glama's health check, so the Glama fix above comes first. None of the three had our server on 13 September.

What is not a directory

Several page-one results for this query are platforms publishing their own MCP servers, and there is nothing to submit. Composio's MCP page lists its own toolkits. Pipedream's MCP page lists the apps Pipedream connects to. Apify's MCP category is its actors. They rank for the phrase because they are large and the phrase is new. If you are looking for somewhere to be listed, skip them; if you are looking for a server to use, they are fine.

The same goes for the general AI tool directories: most now have an "MCP" tag, but they list your product, not your server, and the submission is the same form as for any tool.

The order to do it in

1. Publish to the official registry. Write server.json, put the auth file or DNS record in place, run mcp-publisher. Free, minutes, and it seeds mcp.directory and whoever else reads the API.
2. Claim Glama and give it health-check credentials. The well-known file, then the credentials, so the badge does not say Unhealthy on the page you will link people to.
3. Add the URL on Smithery if your server is streamable HTTP; publish a server card if the scan cannot authenticate.
4. Claim what has already crawled you on LobeHub and mcp.directory rather than submitting again.
5. Open the pull requests on the remote-servers list first, then the general one.
6. Decide about the two $39 tiers by whether you want the link, not the listing. The free listing on both is the same entry, later.
7. Anthropic and Docker last, because both need work on the server: OAuth and tool annotations for one, a reviewed PR and test credentials for the other.

What none of this does is get your server talked about. A directory entry is a place to be found by someone already searching; the mentions that make an assistant recommend a tool come from other people's pages, which is the outreach half. Our Claude SEO skill, Cursor SEO skill, OpenCode SEO skill and OpenClaw SEO skill pages are what the server looks like from the user's side; link building for a launch covers the outreach that goes with a listing round.

Frequently asked questions

What is an MCP server directory?

A public list of Model Context Protocol servers that agent users browse to find tools to connect. Some are registries with an API that clients and other directories read from (the official MCP Registry), some are marketplaces that host or proxy the server (Smithery, LobeHub), and some are plain listing sites that copy metadata from GitHub. Being in the registry gets you copied into several of the others.

Which MCP directory should I submit to first?

The official MCP Registry at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io. It is free, has no review queue, verifies that you own the namespace by DNS or an HTTP file, and other directories pull from it: mcp.directory imports registry entries on its own and PulseMCP, which has paused its own submissions, tells you to publish there instead. Then Glama, which is the largest independent index and verifies ownership through a well-known file.

Do MCP directories charge for a listing?

Most are free. On 13 September 2026 two published a paid tier: mcp.so charges $39 one-time to publish immediately with a verified badge and a dofollow link, and mcpservers.org charges $39 one-time for review within 24 hours, an official badge and a dofollow link, against a free queue of up to two weeks. AgenticSkills offers featured placement by enquiry. The official registry, Glama, Smithery, LobeHub, Docker and Anthropic charge nothing.

Can a remote MCP server be listed, or only open-source packages?

Remote servers with a URL are accepted by the official registry (a remotes entry with streamable-http), Glama (as a Connector), Smithery (bring your own hosting, the Smithery gateway proxies to it), Docker's catalog (no Dockerfile needed) and Anthropic's Connectors Directory (remote only). mcp.directory requires a GitHub repository URL, and mcp-get is a package registry for npm and PyPI packages, so a hosted-only server has nothing to give them.

Do these listings give a backlink?

Some do. mcp.so and mcpservers.org sell a dofollow link as part of the paid tier, which tells you the free listing's link is nofollow or absent. The official registry entry carries your website URL as data, not as an HTML link on a page. Treat these as distribution and a citation source, and judge any link by whether the page ranks, as with any directory.

Is MentionAgent listed on these directories?

On 13 September 2026: yes on the official MCP Registry as ai.mentionagent/mentionagent, yes on Glama as an ownership-verified connector, and yes on LobeHub via the Claude skill repository, marked unvalidated. Not found on Smithery, mcp.so, PulseMCP, mcp.directory, MCP Store, mcpservers.com, AgenticSkills or the three GitHub lists. Could not check mcpservers.org, MCP Market or cursor.directory because their pages blocked our crawler.

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