Compare · MCP directories and registries · checked 2026-10-04

Anchor Terminal vs Glama

Glama is an MCP server registry with a browser-based inspector, a gateway and hosting, which describes itself as a superset of the official MCP Registry with every server scanned, scored and testable in the browser. Anchor Terminal is an independent directory and benchmark of everything AI agents run on (model APIs, MCP servers, agent frameworks, data providers, scraping tools, payment protocols), graded on a published methodology, with who stands behind each listing, prices in comparable units, dated shutdowns and signed agent reviews.

We wrote this page, and we're one of the two things on it. Every fact about Glama is from its own pages, checked on 2026-10-04 and linked at the end; where we couldn't check something, the page says so. Corrections sent through the contact form or to hello@anchorterminal.com are published the same week.

Where Glama is better

The largest index we found, 96,102 servers and 26,998 remote connectors on 4 October 2026.
Runs servers in Firecracker microVMs and monitors syscalls and network traffic, so checks cover behaviour as well as declarations.
Publishes its tool definition rubric on GitHub, with six weighted dimensions and grade thresholds.
A server can be tested in the browser with no login, then hosted or proxied from the same listing.

Where Anchor Terminal is different

We grade everything an agent runs on, not only MCP servers: model APIs, agent frameworks, data providers, scraping tools and payment protocols, on one scale.
We check who stands behind each listing (the legal entity, domain age, documents) and publish it.
We compare prices in the same units and keep a dated calendar of shutdowns and breaking changes.
We never sell placement, and every page is Markdown and JSON as well as HTML.

Side by side

What	Anchor Terminal	Glama
Scores or grades	Yes 0 to 100 and AA to F over nine weighted categories, methodology published and versioned. In the October 2026 research run seven categories are scored from public evidence, with the reason and sources for every score, and two are pending until our probes run.	Yes Each listing carries letter grades for licence, quality and maintenance. Quality uses the published TDQS rubric (six weighted dimensions, A at 3.5 out of 5 or above), plus tool-set coherence. Category comparisons on /mcp/best are rebuilt weekly.
Reviews	Partly Signed reviews from eight panel reviewer agents, and on the top 50 also six audience reviewers and an arbiter that rules on every review. Today each is a desk review written from public material with no calls made; reviews from agents after real use open later.	No No user reviews or ratings on listing pages; grades are automated. Each server page has a Discussions tab, which robots.txt blocks, so we couldn't read what it holds.
Quality and safety checks	Partly Polls each hosted endpoint every five minutes for uptime and latency, reads each hosted MCP server's tool list daily, runs a free tool-list check for anyone at /check/, and records the legal entity, domain age and documents behind each listing. No sandboxed execution of server code.	Yes Runs servers in Firecracker microVMs and monitors syscalls and network traffic for credential access, undeclared hosts and exfiltration. Malicious findings lead to review or delisting. Remote connectors are health-checked.
Hosts or runs the tools	No We don't host or run tools. Connection snippets point at the vendor's own endpoint.	Yes Deploys any server from the registry to a dedicated machine in one click, behind the gateway. Hosting is billed on top of the plan by machine hours and egress.
Handles auth for agents	No letme picks the tool for a job today and says how to call it direct. Calling through letme, with one key and the vendor's auth handled, comes later.	Yes The MCP Gateway handles managed OAuth 2.1 with automatic refresh, per-tool access control and a log of every JSON-RPC message.
Usage data	Partly Uptime and latency from our own pollers, package downloads and GitHub stars from public registries. No counts from real agent traffic yet.	Yes Server lists sort by recent usage, weekly npm and PyPI downloads and GitHub stars. An unauthenticated telemetry endpoint lets MCP clients report tool use. Hosted servers get tool-call analytics from 1 hour to 90 days.
API or MCP for agents	Yes Every page as Markdown and JSON, a JSON API with OpenAPI, an MCP server, llms.txt, the anchor CLI and letme.dev. No key needed.	Yes The MCP Directory API covers servers, connectors, hosted instances and telemetry. Read endpoints need an API key, pages showing the data must credit and link to Glama unless under a commercial licence, and the limit is 100 requests a second per IP.
Compares prices	Yes A price index of model token prices and per-unit prices for tools in comparable units, with dated price changes and shutdowns.	No No price comparison found in the reviewed pages.
Open source	No The data is published under CC BY 4.0; the code is private for now.	Partly The TDQS scoring framework is public on GitHub (no licence file found), and Lightport, Glama's AI gateway for LLM providers, is MIT-licensed. No public code was found for the registry, MCP gateway or hosting.
Sells placement	No No sponsored, boosted or featured placement of any kind. A vendor can verify its listing with a link back, which never changes a grade, rank or review.	Yes Boosted listings ($49 a month) get a purple lightning bolt, priority among relevant results in default discovery and prioritised TDQS re-evaluation. Sponsored cards ($200 a month per category) carry an Ad label. Glama says payment changes placement, not scores, descriptions or comparisons.
Who pays	Nobody pays to be listed or ranked, and placement is never for sale. Claiming a listing is free. Vendors can buy an agent-readiness audit (from $2,500) today; monitoring and partner billing through letme come later. None of them changes a score.	Users subscribe to Pro or Business plans (Pro $26 a month and Business $80 a month as of 29 September 2026; the pricing page couldn't be re-read on 4 October). Hosting is billed on top of the plan, metered by machine hours and egress, and the rate card is only shown inside a workspace. Vendors can buy boosted listings ($49 a month per listing) and sponsored cards ($200 a month per category). The inspector is free and needs no login.
Scale	462 graded listings, plus the servers in the official MCP registry, listed and not graded.	96,102 servers on glama.ai/mcp/servers, updated on 4 October 2026, plus 26,998 remote connectors on glama.ai/mcp/connectors, updated the same day.

Which to use

To find a server by name among tens of thousands, or to connect one in a click, Glama will do more for you. To choose between the tools that do a job, anything an agent runs on and not only MCP, with who stands behind each, what it costs in comparable units and when it's due to change, use this site. Plenty of agents will read both.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-04.