Nearly every "best MCP servers" list on the web recommends the GitHub, Slack and PostgreSQL servers from Anthropic's reference repository. Those three were archived. So were ten others. The lists have not caught up.
Anthropic's servers repository — 86,700 stars — now ships exactly seven reference implementations. Thirteen more were moved to a separate servers-archived repo, with several handed to the vendors whose products they wrap. Knowing which is which is the difference between a config that works and one that quietly points at unmaintained code.
Quick answer: there are 7 official reference servers, 13 archived ones people still recommend, and roughly 9,800 community servers indexed across public directories. Start with the reference set, then add vendor-published servers for the tools you actually use.
Key takeaways
The official reference list is smaller than you think. Seven servers, all general-purpose primitives. Anything branded — GitHub, Slack, Sentry — is no longer part of it.
Archived does not mean broken, it means unowned. Some archived servers still run. Nobody is fixing them when they stop.
Prefer the vendor's own server. When GitHub, Sentry or Notion publishes an MCP server for its own product, that is the one to connect — it tracks their API changes because it is their API.
Directory listings are not endorsements. 9,800 indexed servers include abandoned weekend projects. Check the last commit before you paste anything into a config.
- Sorted by maintainer, not popularity. Star counts tell you what was fashionable in 2025. Who maintains it tells you whether it will work next quarter.
- Disclosure: Prowlo is our own MCP server and it appears in the vendor table below, on the same terms as everything else.
Which MCP servers are official?
Seven, and they are deliberately generic — primitives rather than product integrations.
The archived servers people still recommend
Thirteen reference servers were moved out of the main repository into servers-archived. They still appear in listicles, YouTube videos and Stack Overflow answers as though they were current.
Vendor-published servers worth connecting
The reliable pattern in 2026: connect the server published by the company whose product it wraps. They track their own API changes because it is their API.
Where Prowlo fits
Prowlo is the row above marked "ours", so weigh it accordingly. It is an MCP server for Reddit and X: your agent calls search_dataset against communities and keywords you put on watch, and gets typed JSON ranked by meaning rather than keyword overlap. It sources its data independently, so there is no Reddit or X API key to hold and no per-read metering. Read-only by design — it never posts, comments or votes.
It is the wrong choice if you want a general web scraper or a one-off bulk export. It is the right one when an agent needs a standing, filtered view of what people are saying. The Reddit MCP server comparison puts it beside the open-source alternatives, including where they win.
Where to find the other 9,800
No curated list can cover the whole ecosystem, and you should be suspicious of any that claims to. These are the registries worth searching:
The official MCP registry the canonical index, and the one other directories increasingly ingest from. Start here.
mcpservers.org 9,800+ servers, split into official and community, filterable by category.
Glama large index with a remote/local/hybrid filter, useful when you specifically want a hosted server.
PulseMCP tracks servers alongside the clients that support them.
best-of-mcp-servers a ranked GitHub list of 400 servers across 34 categories, weighted by project health rather than raw stars.
Three checks before pasting anything into your config: when was the last commit, who owns the repo, and does it need write access it has no reason to need.
How do you add a server once you have chosen one?
Local servers go in your client's config as a command to run; remote servers go in as a URL plus a key. The MCP setup guide covers both, and the Claude, Claude Code, Cursor & Cline page has per-client instructions. If the protocol itself is still fuzzy, start with what an MCP server actually is.
Related reading
- What is an MCP server? A plain explanation
- The best Reddit MCP servers in 2026, compared
- Prowlo's Reddit MCP server
- Connect Claude, Claude Code, Cursor & Cline
FAQ
How many MCP servers are there? Public directories index more than 9,800. Anthropic's reference repository ships 7. The gap is community and vendor-published servers, and its quality varies enormously — treat a directory listing as a search result, not a recommendation.
What is the best MCP server? There is no single answer, because servers wrap different products. The useful rule is to prefer the server published by the vendor whose product you are connecting to, then official reference servers, then community projects with recent commits — in that order.
Is there an awesome-mcp-servers list? Several. mcpservers.org brands itself "Awesome MCP Servers" and indexes 9,800+; tolkonepiu/best-of-mcp-servers ranks 400 by project health across 34 categories. Both are broader than any hand-written list, including this one.
Are the official MCP servers still maintained? The seven current reference servers are. Thirteen others were archived into a separate servers-archived repository, including GitHub, Slack, PostgreSQL and Google Drive — several now have vendor-maintained replacements instead.
Can I use MCP servers with ChatGPT and Cursor, not just Claude? Yes. MCP is an open standard with cross-vendor support — ChatGPT, Cursor, Cline, Zed and Windsurf all connect MCP servers. A server written once works across compatible clients, which is the reason the protocol exists.
Need Reddit and X in your agent's toolset? Prowlo serves filtered, semantically searchable social records over MCP — no API keys, read-only, $19/mo flat. Start a free 14-day trial →