An MCP server is a small program that exposes tools, resources, and prompts to an AI client over the Model Context Protocol. It speaks JSON-RPC 2.0 over stdio, Server-Sent Events, or Streamable HTTP – and once connected, the AI can call any tool the server defines.

MCP-compatible clients include Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains IDEs. One MCP server works across all of them – you install it once, every client can use it.

Glama indexes every MCP server in the ecosystem – browse by category, search across every tool they expose, or deploy a hosted connector in one click.

An MCP connector is a pre-configured MCP server you can plug into an AI client in one step. In Claude, ChatGPT, and other clients, any remote MCP server a user has added to their account shows up as a "connector".

A Glama connector goes further. It adds hosting, managed credentials, and per-tool access control on top of the underlying server – so you don't have to run the server, store the tokens, or touch any config. Paste the Glama URL into Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor, and the Glama Gateway does the rest.

Open Cursor Settings → Features → MCP → + Add New MCP Server, or edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json directly. Each server takes a command, an args array, and an optional env map – for example, command: "npx" with args: ["-y", "@example/mcp-server"].

Pick any server from the Glama registry – each server page shows the exact JSON block to paste, pre-filled for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and VS Code. To test a remote server before adding it, use the Glama MCP Inspector – no install required.

In Claude Desktop, open Settings → Developer → Edit Config – that opens claude_desktop_config.json. Add your server under the mcpServers key using the same command/args/env structure Cursor uses, then quit and relaunch Claude Desktop.

In Claude Code, run claude mcp add <name> <command> from your terminal – it writes the entry to your project's MCP config directly.

Every server on the Glama registry ships with a pre-filled config block for both clients – copy it, paste it, done. To test a server remotely before wiring it up, open the Glama MCP Inspector and point it at the server URL.

Yes. When you know what capability you need but don't know which server provides it, tool-level search gets you there in one query.

Glama indexes every tool exposed by every server in its registry – names, descriptions, input schemas, and the MCP annotation hints (readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint) that tell you whether a tool is safe to run in automated agent loops. You can search for capabilities like:

• query Postgres – find every database-query tool
• send email – find every email-sending tool
• generate Figma component – find every Figma-integration tool

Once you've found a matching tool, you can either install the underlying server yourself or plug in the Glama-hosted connector for that server in one click. Few other MCP directories index at the tool level.

The official MCP Registry is a vendor-neutral index of MCP server metadata maintained by the MCP steering group – the canonical source of truth for publicly published servers.

Glama builds on top of it with much deeper per-connector data and a full control plane:

• Rich metadata on every connector – health checks, quality scores, security audits, tool schemas with annotations, usage telemetry, license info, and maintainer notes
• One-click hosting on managed infrastructure
• Full observability and control over every call – JSON-RPC logging, per-tool access control, managed OAuth credentials, and usage analytics

Use the official registry for vendor-neutral metadata. Use Glama when you need depth, observability, and control over production MCP traffic. See our indexing methodology for the full technical description of how every server in the Glama registry is built, introspected, audited, and scored.