State of MCP, Q3 2026
Three findings from 393 tracked MCP servers: the ecosystem is still overwhelmingly local, most servers authenticate with a long-lived API key rather than OAuth, and the categories with the least coverage are the ones where a mistake is hardest to undo.
1. Most MCP servers still cannot run in ChatGPT
86% of ranked servers ship stdio only. A stdio server runs as a local child process, which Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Windsurf can all spawn — and ChatGPT cannot. Only the 37% exposing a remote HTTPS transport can be wired in as a ChatGPT custom connector. Percentages exceed 100 because servers may offer both.
This is the single most practical fact in the dataset. It explains why the answer to "can I use this MCP in ChatGPT?" is usually no, and why hosted endpoints are the growth edge of the ecosystem. If you are building a server today and want ChatGPT reach, ship a remote transport alongside stdio rather than instead of it.
2. The ecosystem runs on long-lived API keys
53% authenticate with an API key; 30% use OAuth 2.1. An API key sitting in a config file does not expire, carries no scoped consent screen, and is usually as powerful as the account that issued it. OAuth 2.1 gives you revocation and granular scopes, which is why the servers touching the most sensitive surfaces increasingly adopt it.
The practical read: when a server offers both, choose OAuth. When it only offers an API key, create a dedicated one scoped to the narrowest permission set that covers the task, rather than reusing a personal token. The 18% needing no auth at all are mostly local utilities — filesystem, git, time — where there is nothing remote to authenticate against.
3. Coverage follows the builders, not the market
The best-served categories are the ones developers automate for themselves. Analytics, developer tools and databases lead with 12–13 ranked servers each. The thin end of the distribution is not technically harder — it is simply further from a developer's own desk: education & learning has no ranked server at all, sales & outreach has one, and project management, design & creative, productivity and domains sit at two apiece.
| Best-served category | Ranked servers |
|---|---|
| Analytics & Data | 13 |
| Developer Tools | 12 |
| Databases | 12 |
| Cloud & Infrastructure | 11 |
| Browser Automation | 9 |
| Web Search | 9 |
| Web Scraping | 9 |
| Git & Repo Workflows | 8 |
Worth separating two things that look alike in a category count. A thin category can mean the vendors have not shipped, or it can mean we have not finished the editorial work. Domains is the first kind — six registrars ship a server, but most reach the agent as ChatGPT app listings rather than servers you configure in a client, so only two are ranked. Education is the second: the demand is obvious and nobody has built for it. Neither is a claim that the software is impossible to write.
Two thirds of the catalog is not a developer server at all
Pricing
Nearly everything has a free path, but only 29% is open source outright. Paid-only servers cluster where the underlying data costs real money — proxy networks, SEO indexes.
What we would watch next quarter
- Whether the remote-transport share climbs past 50%, which is what it would take for ChatGPT to stop being a second-class MCP client.
- Whether OAuth 2.1 overtakes API keys among servers that touch user data, as opposed to infrastructure.
- Whether anything credible appears in education and learning, the one primary category still holding zero ranked servers.
Methodology
Figures are drawn from our catalog of 393 tracked servers as of 2026-08-24, of which 133 are ranked editorial picks, plus the official MCP Registry and the npm and PyPI registries for adoption. Percentages are over the ranked set unless stated otherwise, since ChatGPT-app listings do not expose comparable transport or auth metadata. Transport percentages sum above 100 because a server may ship more than one. The report regenerates from a script in our repository, so each quarter is computed the same way rather than hand-assembled. Our ranking rubric is documented at /about/methodology.
Frequently asked questions
How many MCP servers can actually run inside ChatGPT?
A minority of developer-facing ones. 86% of the ranked servers we track ship stdio only, meaning they run as a local process that ChatGPT cannot spawn. Only servers exposing a remote HTTPS transport — 38% of the ranked set — can be added as a ChatGPT custom connector.
What is the most common way MCP servers authenticate?
A long-lived API key, used by 53% of ranked servers. OAuth 2.1 accounts for 30%, and 17% need no auth at all. That matters because an API key in a config file has no expiry and no scoped consent screen, so the blast radius of a leaked one is whatever the key can reach.
Are most MCP servers free?
Most have a free path, but only 29% are open source outright. Freemium is the largest single group at 46%, meaning a usable free tier with paid scaling. Fully paid servers are 10%, concentrated in data networks and SEO platforms where the underlying data has real cost.
Which categories are best served today?
Developer-adjacent ones. Analytics & Data, Developer Tools, Databases lead with 12–13 ranked servers each, followed by cloud & infrastructure at 11. That reflects who built MCP servers first: the people already automating their own workflows.
Which categories are worst served?
The knowledge-worker ones. Education & Learning has no ranked server at all, sales & outreach has one, and project management, design & creative, productivity and domains sit at two each. The split is not about technical difficulty — it is about who built MCP servers first. Developers automated their own work, so analytics, developer tools and databases filled up while the categories a non-developer would reach for stayed thin.
How is this data collected?
From our own catalog of 393 tracked servers, of which 133 are ranked editorial picks, plus the official MCP Registry and the npm and PyPI registries for adoption figures. Percentages are over the ranked set unless stated. Figures are as of 2026-08-24 and regenerate from a script in our repo.
Browse the ranked catalog these numbers come from, or read how each server is scored.
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