AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Mcpsnoop – Wireshark for MCP (transparent proxy and live TUI)
Wireshark for MCP. A transparent proxy that shows every real tool call between your AI client and your MCP servers, live in your terminal. - kerlenton/mcpsnoop
Mcpsnoop is a transparent proxy and live terminal user interface tool designed to monitor Model Context Protocol (MCP) communications. It functions similarly to Wireshark but specifically for MCP traffic, allowing… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
- 1MT
https://github.com/mcp-shark/mcp-shark Site: https://mcpshark.sh/ I built MCPShark, a traffic inspector for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It sits between your editor/LLM client and MCP servers so you can: • See all MCP traffic (requests, responses, tools, resources) in one place • Debug sessions when tools don’t behave as expected • Optionally run “Smart Scan” checks to flag risky tools / configs
Dec 2025 · its alternatives →
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Pipedream MCP▲2912,500+ APIs and 10,000+ tools for your AI assistant
2025 · mcp.pipedream.com · its alternatives →
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NitroStackfree tier, from $30/mo▲243Build, test, and deploy MCP servers in one place
16d ago · nitrostack.ai · its alternatives →
- 4MV
A few days ago I posted MCPShark (a traffic inspector for the Model Context Protocol). I just shipped a VS Code / Cursor extension that lets you view MCP traffic directly in the editor, so you’re not jumping between terminals, logs, and "I think this is what got sent". VS Code Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MCPShark... Main repo: https://github.com/mcp-shark/mcp-shark Feature requests / issues: https://github.com/mcp-shark/mcp-shark/issues Site: https://mcpshark.sh/ If…
Dec 2025 · its alternatives →
- 5
I noticed the growing security concerns around MCP (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43600192) and built an open source tool that can detect several patterns of tool poisoning attacks, exfiltration channels and cross-origin manipulations. MCP-Shield scans your installed servers (Cursor, Claude Desktop, etc.) and shows what each tool is trying to do at the instruction level, beyond just the API surface. It catches hidden instructions that try to read sensitive files, shadow other tools' behavior, or exfiltrate data. Example of what it detects: - Hidden instructions…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
Wireshark-like forensic analysis for Model Context Protocol communications Capture, inspect, and investigate all HTTP requests and responses between your IDE and MCP servers - mcp-shark/mcp-shark
Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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MCP Playground▲160MCP Playground is a Postman-style tool for MCP — inspect servers, execute tools live, test your client, all from the browser. Four things in one place: 1. Free hosted MCP servers — four public test servers anyone can point their client at: Echo (connectivity), Auth (Bearer token flow), Error (error handling), Complex (multi-tool schemas).No sign-up, just use the URL. 2. Server inspector — paste any remote MCP server URL, see all its tools/resources/prompts, execute them live, inspect the full JSON-RPC log. HTTP, SSE, and WebSocket all supported. 3. Registry — 10,000+ servers…
Nov 2025 · mcpplayground.io · its alternatives →
- 8
Preloop▲121Hey HN, I’m Yannis, co-founder of Preloop. We’ve built a proxy for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that lets you add human approval gates to your AI agents without changing your agent code. We’re building agents that use tools (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.), but we were terrified to give them write-access to sensitive systems (Stripe, Prod DBs, AWS). We didn't want to rewrite our agents to wrap every tool call in complex "ask_user" logic, especially since we use different agent runtimes. We built Preloop as a middleware layer. It acts as a standard MCP server proxy.You point your agent to…
Jan 2026 · preloop.ai · its alternatives →
- 9
Hi HN, Gabriel, Co-Founder at Permit.io. We're releasing Permit MCP Gateway today, an authorization proxy for MCP servers. TL;DR - we built an MCP Gateway that developers love and CISOs trust. Watch more[0] Now, after your little hate on using fancy copy on HN, to the real thing: MCP is in a strange place. Developers are debating whether it's overcomplicated compared to CLIs or skills files. Meanwhile, enterprises are adopting it by default because every agentic system that acts on your behalf, Cursor, Claude, Copilot, internal agents, needs a stable infrastructure for connecting to tools.…
Mar 2026 · permit.io · its alternatives →
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Wireshark-like forensic analysis for Model Context Protocol communications Capture, inspect, and investigate all HTTP requests and responses between your IDE and MCP servers - mcp-shark/docs/configuration.md at 6d7abfc9d52349c99830d3e468c3342719c7842b · mcp-shark/mcp-shark
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Hey everyone, I've wanted an easy way to control which mcp server tools are available to clients. So for example, I might want a gmail server to only expose the read tool (but not send, delete etc). I figured if I create a cli for spawning mcp servers, I could intercept the stdin, stdout, stderr etc and modify what the clients see when they are making calls to list tools, resources, and prompts. Well it worked! In the initial version you can easily add a server to claude with a safe list of tools: npx -y mcpgod add @modelcontextprotocol/server-everything --client claude --tools=echo,add…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 12
A universal CLI client for MCP. mcpc supports persistent sessions, stdio/HTTP, OAuth 2.1, tasks, JSON output for code mode, proxy for AI sandboxes, x402, and more. - apify/mcpc
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
An ultra-fast, single-binary MCP server written in Rust as a lightweight alternative to Node.js/Python. - StamManif/mcp-stama
Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
MCPCore▲80MCPCore is a complete MCP hosting and MCP cloud platform. Create, build, and deploy MCP servers in minutes, then manage auth, secrets, and analytics from a single dashboard.
Mar 2026 · mcpcore.io · its alternatives →
- 15OS
Large Language Models (LLMs) are powerful, but they’re limited by fixed context windows and outdated knowledge. What if your AI could access live search, structured data extraction, OCR, and more—all through a standardized interface? We built the JigsawStack MCP Server, an open-source implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) that lets any AI model call external tools effortlessly. Here’s what it unlocks: - Web Search & Scraping: Fetch live information and extract structured data from web pages. - OCR & Structured Data Extraction: Process images, receipts, invoices, and handwritten…
2025 · its alternatives →
- 16
Zero-dep CLI: one MCP config synced to every agent. A 255-tool listing costs 581 tokens, not 71,929 - schemas never enter context. - activeing123/mcptoon
Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
Hi HN, my name is Philip, I’m the co-founder of Glasskube and one of the creators of HyprMCP. This project started when we did what everyone was doing — building a remote MCP server and launching it. Building the first local MCP server for testing was quite simple, and we had our first tools ready within a day. The next step was turning that into a production-ready remote MCP server. As we exposed the MCP server to our users, we wanted to authenticate them with our existing authentication methods. We dove deep into authentication. Our approach was to build an auth proxy and plug it in front…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Async transport layers for MCP. Contribute to bh-rat/asyncmcp development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Built a terminal-based chat application that interact with AI models while keeping full control of chat data. Simple but effective MCP client implementation.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22MF
Complete MCP traffic analysis tool with desktop app for Mac, Windows. GitHub: https://github.com/mcp-shark/mcp-shark Visit the website for desktop apps: Web: https://www.mcpshark.sh/
Nov 2025 · its alternatives →
- 23
We built a Rust MCP server, which wraps the excellent headless terminal (HT)[1] to makes it available for agentic coding tools. Most agentic coding tools struggle with blocking, interactive terminal tools (all the boilerplate generator, infra CLI tools etc). This is because many existing CLI dev tools are built for humans and require interactive input. We built this so agentic coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Memex, etc) can “see” and “interact” with terminals exactly like humans do. In our demo video [2], you'll see it operating vim/emacs just as a human would - selecting options,…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
ContextGuard▲12I built ContextGuard after discovering that 43% of MCP servers have critical security vulnerabilities. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the new standard that lets Claude Clients(Desktop, Windsurf, Cursor, etc.) access external tools and data sources - think of it as a plugin system for AI assistants. The problem: When you give those clients access to your filesystem, databases, or APIs through MCP servers, you're opening up serious attack vectors. Prompt injection, data leakage, and path traversal attacks are all possible. Most developers building MCP servers don't have security expertise,…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- MCPShark – Traffic Inspector for Model Context Protocol alternatives
- Pipedream MCP alternatives
- NitroStack alternatives
- MCPShark Viewer (VS Code/Cursor extension)- view MCP traffic in-editor alternatives
- MCP-Shield – Detect security issues in MCP servers alternatives
- MCP Traffic Analysis Tool alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →