Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Scan My MCP

Audit MCPs for security vulnerabilities.

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 2 we have checked on their own sites, 2 of them free or with a free tier.

1. 1
   MCP-Shield – Detect security issues in MCP servers▲134

   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 →

2. 2
   MCPSafe▲6

   We've been scanning MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers to understand the security posture of the ecosystem. After 306 servers and 1,211 vulnerabilities, here's what we found: - 69 critical vulnerabilities - 32 servers using eval() on untrusted input - 31 SQL injection vulnerabilities - 32 servers with hardcoded API credentials 10.5% of servers have at least one critical vulnerability. MCP servers run with your permissions. AI agents trust them implicitly. A prompt injection can exploit them remotely. MCPSafe (https://mcpsafe.org) lets you scan before you connect. Free tier…

   Feb 2026 · mcpsafe.org · its alternatives →

3. 3
   MCP Playground▲160

   MCP 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 →

4. 4
   Permit MCP Gateway▲134

   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 →

5. 5
   MCPGod: Fine-grained control over MCP clients, servers, and tools▲37

   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 →

6. 6
   MCP Security Suite▲36

   Hi HN! We kept seeing devs get pwned through MCP tools in ways that security scanners completely miss. So we built an open-source analyzer to catch these attacks. Our first OSS by Mighty team. The problem: At Defcon, we saw MCP exploits with 100% success rate against Claude and Llama. Three attack patterns: Hidden Unicode in "error messages" - Paste a colleague's error into Claude, your SSH keys get exfiltrated Trusted tool updates - That database tool you've used for months? Last week's update added credential theft Tool redefinition - Malicious tool redefines "deploy to prod" to run…

   2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Scan MCP▲7

   MCP scanning & threat observability for AI-native tools

   2025 · scanmcp.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   0xAudit▲110

   The security layer for AI agents to scan, fix verify via MCP

   Feb 2026 · 0-x-audit.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   MCP Defender▲152

   Hi HN, MCP Defender is an open source desktop app that automatically proxies your MCP traffic in AI apps like Cursor, Claude, Windsurf and VSCode. It then scans all requests and responses between the apps and the MCP tools they call. If it detects anything malicious, it alerts you and lets you allow or block the tool call. While the threat landscape of MCP is still being actively researched, there are dangerous things that MCP Defender can block today. For example, a developer asks Cursor to fix a Github issue with an attached crash log. However, the Github issue was created by an attacker…

   2025 · mcpdefender.com · its alternatives →

10. 10MT
    MCPShark – Traffic Inspector for Model Context Protocol▲37

    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 →

11. 11
    Risk Analysis Database of Every MCP Server▲22

    Hi HN, We’re building security tooling around agentic AI systems. Today, we're releasing our public MCP catalog with detailed risk analysis for every MCP server we've found on the internet: https://mcp.armor1.ai/mcp-directory We all love agents and the power that MCPs unlock: suddenly your AI assistant can query databases, manage files, call APIs, and interact with the real world. But when we started adopting MCPs ourselves, we kept running into the same nagging questions: Is this MCP safe? Where is my data actually going? Could it execute destructive actions? Is it…

    Feb 2026 · mcp.armor1.ai · its alternatives →

12. 12ST
    Simple to build MCP servers that easily connect with custom LLM calls▲57

    Hi! After learning about MCP, I'm really excited about the future of provider-agnostic, re-usable tooling. Unfortunately I've found that while it's easy to implement an MCP server for use with tools that support it (such as Claude Desktop), it's not as easy to implement your own support (such as integrating an MCP server into your own LLM application). We implemented a thin MCP wrapper that easily integrates with Mirascope calls so that you can hook up an MCP server and client super easily to any supported LLM provider. Excited to see what people build with this!

    2025 · mirascope.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    MCPScan▲2

    Discover & audit shadow Model Context Protocol servers

    Aug 2026 · kuldeepster574.gumroad.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Mcpsnoop – Wireshark for MCP (transparent proxy and live TUI)▲64

    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

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    MCP Router▲12

    Easily manage MCP servers with best experience and security.

    2025 · mcp-router.net · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Vouqis▲6

    Know if your MCP server actually works

    May 2026 · vouqis-page.vercel.app · its alternatives →

17. 17MS
    MCPSpec – Ship reliable MCP servers without writing test codefree▲7

    Hi HN, I've been building MCPSpec, an open-source CLI for MCP server reliability. Record sessions, generate mock servers, catch Tool Poisoning, and fail your CI build when something's wrong — without writing test code. There are ways to validate MCP servers today — the MCP Inspector, ad-hoc SDK scripts, unit tests for server internals — but nothing that handles regression detection, security auditing, mock generation, and CI pass/fail checks in one tool. MCPSpec does that: 1. Record a session against your real server, replay it after changes to catch regressions 2. Generate a standalone…

    Feb 2026 · light-handle.github.io · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Remote MCP Server Testerfree▲1

    Inspect any remote MCP server — quality, cost, and security

    Aug 2026 · ytkoka.github.io · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Gated▲4

    Audit layer for MCP servers — including the private ones.

    Jul 2026 · gated.cc · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Is Your MCP Ready?▲10

    Scan any MCP server against emerging agent-readiness standards. A score across five dimensions plus a copy-paste fix for every gap. Free, no sign-up.

    Jun 2026 · isyourmcpready.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    ShieldMCP▲5

    MCP Security Scanner

    Jun 2026 · shieldmcp.net · its alternatives →

22. 22
    MCP is unsafe. It's time to talk about MCP malware▲14

    Contribute to ShaojieJiang/mcp-is-dangerous development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    ContextGuard▲12

    I 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 →

24. 24
    Microsoft official MCP for documentation and more▲10

    Official Microsoft Learn MCP Server and CLI tool – powering LLMs and AI agents with real-time, trusted Microsoft docs & code samples. - MicrosoftDocs/mcp

    2025 · github.com · its 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 →