MCP Server Ecosystem in Numbers: 2026 Stats and Trends
Original research on the MCP server ecosystem. Token costs, tool counts, popularity metrics, and category breakdowns from analyzing 60+ servers.
We analyzed every MCP server in the StackMCP catalog -- 66 servers, 794 tools, over 408,000 estimated tokens of tool definitions. This is what the ecosystem looks like right now.
Key Findings
- 66 servers in the catalog expose a combined 794 tools and 408,310 tokens of context overhead.
- The average server costs 6,187 tokens to load. A typical 5-server stack consumes ~31K tokens before you type anything.
- Database servers dominate the ecosystem at 12 servers (18%), followed by Search (5) and Security (5).
- 65% of servers are official -- built or maintained by the company behind the product.
- 73% of servers require an API key or credentials. Only 18 servers work out of the box with zero configuration.
Catalog Overview: 66 Servers and Growing
The MCP server ecosystem has consolidated fast. Of the 66 servers we track, 43 (65%) are official implementations backed by the company that owns the product. The remaining 23 (35%) are community-built.
That ratio matters. A year ago, most MCP servers were community experiments. Now companies like Stripe, Shopify, Cloudflare, Supabase, and Google ship their own. When you install Stripe MCP, you are running code maintained by Stripe's engineering team. That changes the reliability story entirely.
The shift is clearest in the database category. Supabase, Neon, Prisma, Firebase, Convex, Upstash, Pinecone, and Turso all maintain official servers. Community alternatives like SQLite MCP and Redis MCP fill the gaps, but the trend is toward vendor-owned infrastructure.
Token Budget: What 66 Servers Actually Cost
Every MCP server injects tool definitions into your context window. Full schemas, parameter descriptions, everything -- whether you use those tools or not. Here is how the token costs break down across all 66 servers:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum | 515 tokens (Sequential Thinking) |
| Maximum | 39,140 tokens (XcodeBuild) |
| Median | 5,150 tokens |
| Average | 6,187 tokens |
| Total (all 66) | 408,310 tokens |
The distribution is heavily right-skewed. Most servers are modest -- 52 out of 66 (79%) cost under 10,000 tokens. But a handful of outliers dominate:
| Server | Tokens | Tools |
|---|---|---|
| XcodeBuild MCP | 39,140 | 76 |
| Grafana MCP | 22,145 | 43 |
| Sanity MCP | 20,600 | 40 |
| Firebase MCP | 15,450 | 30 |
| Supabase MCP | 12,875 | 25 |
Loading XcodeBuild alone consumes nearly 20% of a 200K context window. That is the price of 76 tools for full Xcode project control. On the other end, Sequential Thinking MCP costs just 515 tokens for a single tool.
How many servers fit in a 200K context window? If you sorted every server from cheapest to most expensive and kept adding, you could fit 49 servers (193,555 tokens) before hitting the ceiling. In practice, you need context for your code, conversation, and outputs -- so the real budget for tool definitions is closer to 30K-40K tokens (15-20% of context).
At that budget, a stack of 5 average servers (30,935 tokens) sits right at the limit. Going to 7 servers (43,309 tokens) will likely crowd out the context your model needs for actual work.
Tool Count: From 1 to 76
The range in tool counts is enormous:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum | 1 tool (Sequential Thinking) |
| Maximum | 76 tools (XcodeBuild) |
| Median | 10 tools |
| Average | 12 tools |
| Total across all servers | 794 tools |
Most servers are focused. 6 servers have 2-4 tools -- search providers like Brave Search (2 tools, 1,030 tokens) and Context7 (2 tools, 1,030 tokens) are remarkably lightweight. The sweet spot for most utility servers is 8-15 tools, covering one domain without bloating context.
The outliers -- Grafana (43), Sanity (40), Firebase (30), Supabase (25) -- are full platform integrations. These make sense if the platform is your primary backend, but adding one alongside 4 other servers means your model is evaluating 70+ tools for every action.
Category Breakdown
Database servers lead the ecosystem by a wide margin.
| Category | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Database | 12 | 18.2% |
| Search | 5 | 7.6% |
| Security | 5 | 7.6% |
| DevOps | 4 | 6.1% |
| Analytics | 3 | 4.5% |
| Mobile | 3 | 4.5% |
| CMS | 3 | 4.5% |
| UI/Design | 2 | 3.0% |
| Developer Tools | 2 | 3.0% |
| SEO | 2 | 3.0% |
| Project Management | 2 | 3.0% |
| AI Tools | 2 | 3.0% |
| Productivity | 2 | 3.0% |
| AI/Vectors | 2 | 3.0% |
| Testing | 2 | 3.0% |
| Communication | 2 | 3.0% |
| Other (13 categories) | 13 | 19.7% |
The database dominance makes sense. Every application needs a data layer, and there are many competing products: Postgres, Supabase, Neon, Prisma, Firebase, Convex, MongoDB, MySQL, SQLite, Redis, Turso, and Upstash all have dedicated servers.
The long tail of single-server categories (Payments, CRM, Cloud, Advertising, Email Marketing) signals how fragmented the tooling ecosystem is. No two developers use the same marketing stack, but nearly everyone needs a database.
Popularity: Stars and Downloads
GitHub stars and npm weekly downloads tell different stories. Stars measure awareness. Downloads measure actual usage.
Top 10 by Weekly Downloads
| Server | Weekly Downloads |
|---|---|
| Prisma MCP | 7,784,885 |
| Playwright MCP | 1,433,368 |
| Firebase MCP | 1,117,036 |
| Convex MCP | 316,710 |
| Context7 MCP | 213,334 |
| Filesystem MCP | 187,170 |
| Memory MCP | 62,114 |
| Sequential Thinking MCP | 56,559 |
| GitHub MCP | 45,850 |
| PostgreSQL MCP | 40,295 |
Prisma and Playwright lead by orders of magnitude, though their download counts reflect the parent package (the MCP server ships inside the main prisma and @playwright/mcp packages). Context7 MCP stands out at 213K weekly downloads as a pure MCP-first package -- no legacy npm audience.
The Anthropic-maintained reference servers (Filesystem, Memory, Sequential Thinking, GitHub, PostgreSQL) form a solid mid-tier. These are the building blocks most developers start with.
Top 10 by GitHub Stars (Unique Repos)
| Server | GitHub Stars |
|---|---|
| Anthropic Reference Servers | 79,160 |
| Expo MCP | 47,443 |
| Context7 MCP | 46,553 |
| Playwright MCP | 27,512 |
| ESLint MCP | 27,103 |
| Turso MCP | 17,475 |
| Convex MCP | 10,366 |
| Firecrawl MCP | 5,565 |
| Firebase MCP | 4,347 |
| Magic MCP (21st.dev) | 4,288 |
The Anthropic reference servers monorepo (hosting GitHub MCP, Filesystem, Memory, Slack, and more) dominates at 79K stars. This is a single repository, so the count is shared across multiple servers.
Cost of Entry: Free vs. Paid
Of all 66 servers, 48 require at least one API key or credential to function. Only 18 servers work immediately with no configuration:
Zero-config servers: Context7, Convex, Docker, ESLint, Expo, Filesystem, Firebase, Kubernetes, Memory, Mobile Next, Playwright, Puppeteer, Semgrep, Sequential Thinking, SQLite, Tailwind CSS, Trivy, and XcodeBuild.
That free tier is enough to build a capable dev stack. Context7 gives you documentation. Playwright gives you browser testing. Filesystem gives you file access. Sequential Thinking improves reasoning. ESLint catches code quality issues. All without creating a single API account.
But most API-dependent servers offer generous free tiers. Supabase, Neon, Firebase, Brave Search, and Exa all have free plans that cover individual developer usage. The real cost is not the API key -- it is the token overhead of loading the server.
What This Means for Developers
1. Budget your context like you budget memory. The average 5-server stack costs ~31K tokens. On a 200K window with code and conversation, that leaves meaningful room. A 7-server stack at ~43K tokens starts to feel tight. Pick servers deliberately.
2. Lightweight search servers are almost free. Context7 (1,030 tokens), Brave Search (1,030 tokens), and Tavily (1,030 tokens) are the cheapest servers in the catalog. Adding one search provider costs almost nothing.
3. Database is the most competitive category. With 12 options, you have real choices. A Supabase developer should use Supabase MCP (12,875 tokens). A Prisma user should use Prisma MCP (4,120 tokens). There is no reason to load both unless you genuinely use both.
4. Start with free servers. The 18 zero-config servers cover documentation, file access, testing, reasoning, linting, and mobile development. Add API-dependent servers only for services you actively use.
5. Watch the outliers. XcodeBuild (39K tokens), Grafana (22K tokens), and Sanity (21K tokens) are powerful but expensive. If they are your primary platform, the cost is justified. Otherwise, they will consume your entire tool budget alone.
Explore the Data
All 66 servers in this analysis are browsable in the StackMCP catalog. Want to build a curated stack? Check the recommended stacks -- including the Indie Hacker stack and Fullstack Web stack that were built using this data.
For practical guidance on keeping your setup lean, read Too Many MCP Servers? How to Build a Lean, Efficient Stack and How to Cut MCP Token Costs.
Data sourced from the StackMCP server catalog as of February 2026. GitHub stars and npm download counts reflect public API data at time of collection.