---
title: "Smithery vs Official MCP Registry | Agent MCP Directory"
description: "Smithery vs Official MCP Registry: one sourced difference and a verdict for product engineers, platform leads and agent builders."
canonical: https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/smithery-vs-official-mcp-registry
site: "Agent MCP Directory"
last_updated: 2026-11-05
section: "Head-to-heads"
---

# Smithery vs Official MCP Registry | Agent MCP Directory

> Smithery vs Official MCP Registry: one sourced difference and a verdict for product engineers, platform leads and agent builders.

Source: https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/smithery-vs-official-mcp-registry
Site: Agent MCP Directory
Last reviewed: 2026-11-05

# 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](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=ai.smithery), observed on 4 November 2026 and [Arcade: Smithery is now part of Arcade.dev (5 Aug 2026)](https://www.arcade.dev/blog/smithery-joins-arcade), read 5 November 2026; Official MCP Registry: [MCP Registry: about](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/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](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/hosts/smithery/) and [Official MCP Registry](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/hosts/official-mcp-registry/).

Edition

4 November 2026

Method

[How rows are verified](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/method/)

Data

[CSV and JSON](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/data/)

Markdown

[This page as markdown](https://agentmcpdirectory.com/compare/smithery-vs-official-mcp-registry/index.md)

## Sources

-   [registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=ai.smithery), read 4 November 2026 (Fact noted from the registry API at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io on 4 November 2026.)
-   [Arcade: Smithery is now part of Arcade.dev (5 Aug 2026)](https://www.arcade.dev/blog/smithery-joins-arcade), read 5 November 2026
-   [MCP Registry: about](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/registry/about), read 5 November 2026
-   [Smithery: smithery.ai](https://smithery.ai/), read 4 November 2026
-   [Smithery: registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers), read 4 November 2026
-   [Official MCP Registry: github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry), read 4 November 2026

Last reviewed 5 November 2026
