# Anchor Terminal vs Smithery (slim)

> How Anchor Terminal compares with Smithery: what each one is, who pays, scale, and ten things side by side, with where Smithery is better. Checked against its own pages on 2026-10-04.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-smithery.md (~2,350 tokens) · this version ~2,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-smithery.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-smithery
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-04

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.

We wrote this page and we're one of the two things on it.

## 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 official MCP registry's servers, listed 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. |

## Sources (checked 2026-10-04)

- [Smithery](https://smithery.ai)
- [MCPs | Smithery](https://smithery.ai/servers)
- [Skills | Smithery](https://smithery.ai/skills)
- [Pricing | Smithery](https://smithery.ai/pricing)
- [Brave Search, Smithery](https://smithery.ai/servers/brave)
- [Exa Search, Smithery](https://smithery.ai/servers/exa)
- [Connect to MCPs, Smithery docs](https://smithery.ai/docs/use/connect)
- [Uplink, Smithery docs](https://smithery.ai/docs/use/uplink)
- [Overview, Smithery docs](https://smithery.ai/docs/build)
- [Publish, Smithery docs](https://smithery.ai/docs/build/publish)
- [Smithery CLI, Smithery docs](https://smithery.ai/docs/concepts/cli)
- [List all servers, Smithery API reference](https://smithery.ai/docs/api-reference/servers/list-all-servers)
- [Get a server, Smithery API reference](https://smithery.ai/docs/api-reference/servers/get-a-server)
- [Smithery docs llms.txt](https://smithery.ai/docs/llms.txt)
- [smithery-ai/cli on GitHub](https://github.com/smithery-ai/cli)
- [smithery-ai/agent.pw on GitHub](https://github.com/smithery-ai/agent.pw)
- [smithery-ai on GitHub](https://github.com/smithery-ai)
- [Smithery is now part of Arcade.dev](https://www.arcade.dev/blog/smithery-joins-arcade/)

## Other comparisons

- [Anchor Terminal vs Glama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-glama.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs PulseMCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-pulsemcp.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs mcp.so](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-so.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs the official MCP Registry](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-registry.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Docker MCP Catalog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-docker-mcp-catalog.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs MCP Market](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-market.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs MCP Toplist](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-mcp-toplist.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Composio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-composio.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Merge Agent Handler](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-merge-agent-handler.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Nango](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-nango.md)
- [Anchor Terminal vs Arcade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-terminal-vs-arcade.md)
- [Tools compared like for like](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/index.md)