AI · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to shutup-mcp

Zero-config MCP proxy that hides 99% of tools

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.

1. 1
   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 →

2. 2
   mcp-usefree tier, from $25/mo▲581

   Hi HN, Luigi here. We maintain mcp-use an open-source TypeScript framework for building MCP servers and MCP Apps: https://github.com/mcp-use/mcp-use MCP is now (finally) stateless so we rewrote mcp-use v2 from scratch for the 2026-07-28 MCP spec revision: https://blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/2026-07-28/ Thanks to the rebuild: - Throughput: +27% → from 8,615 to 10,982 median ops/sec - Cold launch: 2.2x faster → from 151.6 ms to 68.1 ms - Clean install: 82% smaller → from 404.6 MiB to 74.4 MiB Benchmark with methodology here:…

   2025 · manufact.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   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 →

4. 4
   LockIn MCP▲116

   I was tired of how bad distraction blockers are so I built my own. LockIn lets AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, etc.) block websites by editing the system hosts file directly via MCP tools (via a secure cloudflare bridge). Why? Because chrome extensions don't work. Blocking it natively makes it unbypassable, and having your agent gatekeep your focus is the ultimate cheat code. Since everyone is using AI agents nowadays, but most people start scrolling or Reddit while waiting for Claude Code to finish, giving them control over your focus solves that. The MCP server exposes four tools:…

   Jun 2026 · lockinmcp.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   MCP Snitch▲102

   Maintain secure control over your MCP environment

   2025 · mcpsnitch.ai · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Mcptoon – Token-efficient MCP CLI client▲73

   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 →

7. 7AH
   Ask-human-mcp – zero-config human-in-loop hatch to stop hallucinations▲129

   While building my startup i kept running into the issue where ai agents in cursor create endpoints or code that shouldn't exist, hallucinates strings, or just don't understand the code. ask-human-mcp pauses your agent whenever it’s stuck, logs a question into ask_human.md in your root directory with answer: PENDING, and then resumes as soon as you fill in the correct answer. the pain: your agent screams out an endpoint that never existed it makes confident assumptions and you spend hours debugging false leads the fix: ask-human-mcp gives your agent an escape hatch. when it’s unsure, it calls…

   2025 · masonyarbrough.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   ht-mcp – a Rust MCP server of headless terminal for agents▲25

   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 →

9. 9
   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 →

10. 10
    MCPTotal▲179

    Secure MCP servers that just work

    Dec 2025 · a16y.ai · its alternatives →

11. 11
    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 →

12. 12
    0mcp▲20

    Ship MCP Server for your SaaS without engineering overhead

    Aug 2026 · 0mcp.io · its alternatives →

13. 13
    MCP360▲61

    Hey HN Community, I built MCP360 after spending weeks integrating APIs for an AI agent project. Each tool needed its own setup, auth, billing, and maintenance. When any APIs changed, my integrations broke. I got tired of it. MCP360 is a single gateway giving AI agents access to 100+ tools through one config block. Search engines, web scraping, SEO, e-commerce data, maps, domain tools, and more. Real example: Instead of managing Google Search, web scraping, SERP tracking, and keyword research as 4 separate subscriptions (4 bills, 4 auth systems, 4 points of failure), you connect once. Works…

    2025 · mcp360.ai · its alternatives →

14. 14
    0xAudit▲110

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

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

15. 15
    Preloop▲121

    Hey 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 →

16. 16
    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 →

17. 17
    MCP Toggle▲13

    Seamless GUI MCP server management

    2025 · mindfulapps.xyz · its alternatives →

18. 18
    MCP Stack▲16

    The curated directory of MCP Resources for Developers

    2025 · its alternatives →

19. 19
    MCP Secrets Vault – Local MCP proxy to keep API keys out of LLM context▲11

    Local-first MCP mini-vault: let AIs call external APIs without ever seeing your keys. - RachidChabane/mcp-secrets-vault

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    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 →

21. 21
    mcpfold▲4

    Connect every MCP server w/o paying the context-window tax.

    Jul 2026 · mcpfold.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    mcpd – manage MCP servers with a single config file▲14

    Declaratively define and run required tools across environments, from local development to containerized cloud deployments. - mozilla-ai/mcpd

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Kavach MCP Security▲3

    Security middleware for AI agents and MCP servers

    Jun 2026 · pypi.org · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Lilith-zero: Ultra-fast, Rust-based security middleware for MCP▲9

    Lilith Zero is a high-performance security runtime designed to mitigate data exfiltration and unauthorized tool invocation in LLM-based agent systems. By interposing at the transport layer, Lilith Zero enforces security invariants through deterministic policy evaluation and strictly framed execution. Lilith Zero is OS, framework, and language agnostic, providing uniform security primitives across diverse implementation environments.

    Apr 2026 · 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 →