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

Anchor Terminal vs Smithery

Smithery is a registry and connection layer for MCP servers and skills that handles OAuth, credentials and sessions so agents can call third-party tools. Part of Arcade.dev since August 2026. 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 Smithery 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 Smithery is better

Handles OAuth and credentials, so an agent can connect to a listed server and call it, which a directory like ours doesn't do.
Public use counts, from connections made through Smithery, show adoption for each of its 25,028+ listed servers.
Its CLI lets an agent search, connect and call a tool in one flow.
Uplink lets an agent reach an MCP server running on a local machine through the same connection API, without deploying it.

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	Smithery
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.	Partly Server pages show a 0 to 100 figure (77 for Brave Search and 90 for Exa on 4 October 2026). No methodology was found in the reviewed documentation. The default server list isn't sorted by the use counts it shows, and no explanation of its order was found.
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 reviews or ratings found on server or skill pages.
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.	Partly Publishing scans a server for its tools, prompts and resources, and publishers complete an official-vendor verification checklist. The server API returns a security scanPassed flag, but the reviewed documentation doesn't say what that scan checks.
Hosts or runs the tools	No We don't host or run tools. Connection snippets point at the vendor's own endpoint.	Partly Its gateway proxies calls to the vendor's own server, and local servers ship as MCPB bundles that run on the client. The registry API still marks some servers as hosted on Smithery infrastructure, but the publishing docs list only the URL and bundle routes.
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 Smithery Connect stores credentials encrypted and write-only, refreshes tokens and maintains OAuth apps for popular services. The vault is agent.pw, which is open source.
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 Public use counts per server (times connected) and install counts per skill. Publishers can track tool calls and usage patterns for their own servers.
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 Open-source CLI to search, connect and call tools, also installable as a skill. A REST registry API (API key required), an MCP endpoint per namespace and llms.txt for its docs.
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.
Open source	No The data is published under CC BY 4.0; the code is private for now.	Partly The CLI (AGPL-3.0) and the agent.pw credential vault (MIT) are open source. No registry or website repository was found among its public GitHub repositories.
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.	Not found No sponsored, featured or promoted labels found on the homepage, server list or skills list, and no advertising page or placement policy found.
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.	Agent developers sign up free. Its pricing page lists plans for MCP vendors (Hobby, Pro and Custom), but the prices weren't in the page we could fetch on 29 September or 4 October 2026.
Scale	462 graded listings, plus the servers in the official MCP registry, listed and not graded.	25,028+ MCP servers, as stated on smithery.ai on 4 October 2026 (24,289+ on 29 September). Public use counts per server and install counts per skill.

Which to use

To find a server by name among tens of thousands, or to connect one in a click, Smithery 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.