Smithery vs Official MCP Registry
Product engineer: Check whether a registry entry points at a host that still serves it. Developer-platform lead: Hosted-by-third-party entries can break when the host changes, as the 31 Oct 2026 proxy shutdown shows. Agent builder: Prefer entries whose remote is on the vendor's own domain.
The sourced difference
Smithery published 213 hosted servers into the official registry under ai.smithery, all pointing at server.smithery.ai; the registry itself does not host or proxy anything. (Smithery: registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers, observed on 4 November 2026 and Arcade: Smithery is now part of Arcade.dev (5 Aug 2026), read 5 November 2026; Official MCP Registry: MCP Registry: about, read 5 November 2026)
Verdicts by reader
| Reader | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Product engineer | Check whether a registry entry points at a host that still serves it. |
| Developer-platform lead | Hosted-by-third-party entries can break when the host changes, as the 31 Oct 2026 proxy shutdown shows. |
| Agent builder | Prefer entries whose remote is on the vendor's own domain. |
Side by side on the rubric
| Dimension | Smithery | Official MCP Registry |
|---|---|---|
| Remote transport | Streamable HTTP (registry entries) | records both |
| OAuth with client registration | managed identity retired | not applicable |
| Per-tool auth scoping | not documented | not applicable |
| Hosting and scale limits | proxy retired | not a host |
| Observability | not documented | not applicable |
| Pricing | not published | free |
| Registry submission | unclear after acquisition | CLI with namespace verification |
| Discoverability by agents | catalog browse only | open paginated API |
| Own server in the registries | no own server found | not applicable |
Evidence for every cell is on the profiles: Smithery and Official MCP Registry.