# GitLab MCP Server vs GitMCP (slim)

> GitLab scores 67.3 (B) to GitMCP's 40.2 (E) for code repositories. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-gitmcp.md (~4,300 tokens) · this version ~2,630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-gitmcp.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-gitmcp
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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GitLab MCP Server scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against GitMCP's 40.2 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. GitMCP leads on payments & pricing. Both do code repositories.

- GitLab MCP Server: B 67.3, rank #335 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gitlab-mcp.min.md
- GitMCP: E 40.2, rank #1326 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gitmcp.min.md
- GitLab MCP Server, good for Agents working in GitLab projects, merge requests and pipelines, including self-managed instances. github-mcp-server and azure-devops-mcp are the closest listings; teams on GitHub should use GitHub's server. Ahead on Reliability, 62 against 15; Schema & documentation, 85 against 56; Agent ergonomics, 66 against 58; Security & auth, 66 against 42; Maintenance & community, 85 against 8; Transparency & trust, 87 against 36.
- GitMCP, good for Quick, keyless library docs for public GitHub projects in a coding agent. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 30. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.

| Category | GitLab MCP Server | GitMCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 62 | 15 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 85 | 56 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 66 | 58 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 66 | 42 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 8 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 87 | 36 |

| Fact (where they differ) | GitLab MCP Server | GitMCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | GitLab Inc. | Ido Salomon (GitMCP open-source project) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://gitlab.com/api/v4/mcp` | `https://gitmcp.io/{owner}/{repo}` |
| Auth | OAuth | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 47 | 4 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `com.gitlab/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-05-08 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-23 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | none | 8.5k stars |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, GitLab MCP Server +77: GitLab MCP Server 85 (GitLab 19.5 made the server generally available on 15 October 2026, 22 days before this check, and 19.6 changes are already on GitLab.com (30). Monthly releases 19.3, 19.4 (17 September) and 19.5 each changed MCP tools (20). Issues are public on gitlab.com, with a feedback issue (630189) for the server, but we didn't measure reply times (15). The registry entry com.gitlab/mcp sits under a domain-verified namespace with the right remote, though its version is still 0.0.1 from 2 October 2025 (10). GitLab ships through its own CI with monthly and patch releases; no official multi-language API SDK was found (10). 30 + 20 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 85.); GitMCP 8 (The last commit on main is 8 May 2026, 182 days before this check, and there are no tags or releases (0). Nothing in the last 90 days (0). Since May, outside issues and pull requests (#244 to #271, among them the security report #249 and fixes #256, #267 and #250) have gone without a maintainer reply or merge (3). Not found in the official MCP registry under any namespace (0). A run-tests workflow with vitest and a Playwright end-to-end workflow exist on push and pull request (5). 0 + 0 + 3 + 0 + 5 = 8.)
- Transparency & trust, GitLab MCP Server +51: GitLab MCP Server 87 (GitLab's code is public in gitlab-org/gitlab, with the core under MIT and enterprise functions under GitLab's own licence; we didn't establish which licence covers the MCP server code (20). The privacy statement and a sub-processor page of 63 entries name AI providers and their purposes, but that page shows no update date and links no DPA (20). A dated deprecations and removals page and per-tool version history, with superseded tools kept as callable aliases (20). Sub-processors and their locations are disclosed, and Dedicated customers choose their AWS region (18). 20 + 20 + 20 + 18 = 78.); GitMCP 36 (Apache-2.0, with the whole service in the public repository (30). The README says the service stores no personal data or queries and keeps no repository content permanently, but there is no privacy policy or terms page (8). No deprecation policy or dated notices; SSE was removed on 8 May 2026 while the README still shows an SSE config for VS Code (0). The hosting stack (Cloudflare Workers, Workers AI, Vectorize, an Analytics Engine dataset) is visible in wrangler.jsonc but no processor is named for users, and invocation logs were turned off on 8 May (5). 30 + 8 + 0 + 5 = 43.)
- Reliability, GitLab MCP Server +47: GitLab MCP Server 62 (Hosted reading for GitLab.com. Status page at status.gitlab.com (status.io) with an API and a GitLab Duo component (20). Its incident history lives under /pages/, which the site's robots.txt disallows; our reader fetched that history page once before the rule was checked, so its contents are set aside and not scored. The front page shows only the current state, all operational on 6 November, so there is no readable history (5). MCP limits are published per plan, 60 a minute and 3,600 an hour on Free, 600 and 5,000 on Premium and Ultimate (15). 429 responses carry Retry-After and RateLimit-Reset, and a rate-limited upstream API comes back as a `rate_limited` tool result; accept_merge_request requires the head SHA, but we found no general idempotency guidance for writes (12). No uptime SLA on the pricing page (0). Generally available since 19.5 (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 62.); GitMCP 15 (Scored as a hosted MCP server. No status page found (0) and so no readable incident history (5). The maintainer confirmed on issue #245 that gitmcp.io was throttled by Cloudflare for a few hours in May 2026, outside the 90-day window. No rate limits are documented (0) and nothing on 429 or retries (0). No SLA (0). The service is live with no beta or preview label (10). 0 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 15.)
- Payments & pricing, GitMCP +30: GitLab MCP Server 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public for Free and Premium, Ultimate is by quote and GitLab Credits are $1 each, but the MCP server has no per-call price (10). GitLab.com Free needs no card, and the MCP server is on every tier (20). A person signs up, and an administrator must enable MCP and a user must authorise in a browser (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.); GitMCP 60 (Nothing to buy, so no payment protocol (0). Free, stated in the README FAQ (20). No account or card (20). An agent connects with a URL and no signup or key (20). 0 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 60.)
- Schema & documentation, GitLab MCP Server +29: GitLab MCP Server 85 (The tools reference documents every parameter with its type, required flag and enum values, and the server exposes JSON Schema through MCP; we read the reference, not the source (22). docs.gitlab.com/llms.txt is served (10). Each tool says what it does, and superseded tools name their replacement (`Use get_merge_request with include: commits`), though few say when not to use one (14). Enums for include facets, states, scopes and methods, with documented maximums such as first up to 100 and byte_limit up to 1 MB (13). The docs cover 403 insufficient_scope, 400 for an unknown toolset, 429 headers and troubleshooting for Windows and Claude Code, but give few example responses (11). Per-tool version history and monthly release notes (15). 22 + 10 + 14 + 13 + 11 + 15 = 85.); GitMCP 56 (Every tool registers a zod input schema, so inputs are typed JSON Schema (25). There is no llms.txt for GitMCP itself; the README on GitHub is the only Markdown documentation (5). Descriptions are generated per repository and say what each tool reads and when it helps ("Useful for general questions. Always call this tool first if asked about owner/repo"), but not when to avoid one (12). Inputs are a query string and an optional page number, with no enums or constraints beyond types (9). The README has three worked examples and no documented error responses (5). No versioning, tags, releases or changelog (0). 25 + 5 + 12 + 9 + 5 + 0 = 56.)
- Security & auth, GitLab MCP Server +24: GitLab MCP Server 66 (OAuth with dynamic registration and a single `mcp` scope that carries the user's own GitLab permissions, or fine-grained personal access tokens scoped to the MCP tool resource. The docs say GitLab doesn't verify which client uses a client ID and that REST-created apps don't enforce PKCE (22). Toolset and tool headers narrow the surface, an administrator must enable MCP for the group or instance, 19.4 governance defaults writes to Always Ask in Duo settings and 19.6 adds group rules enforced for every client, in beta (16). The docs leave prompt injection to the user ("use MCP tools only on GitLab objects you trust") (5). GitLab audit events exist on paid tiers, but we didn't read whether MCP calls are recorded (8). security.txt is valid until 31 January 2027 and points at a public HackerOne programme; certifications weren't read this run (15). 22 + 16 + 5 + 8 + 15 = 66.); GitMCP 42 (No credentials at all, so nothing to leak or scope (20). Every tool is a read of public content (15). Repository docs, code and fetched URLs reach the model unmarked, and fetch_generic_url_content fetches any absolute URL a document mentions, with no prompt-injection guidance in the README (2). No per-call visibility for the caller (0). SECURITY.md routes reports to a Google Form, but the server-side request forgery report in issue #249 (12 June 2026) and its proposed fix #256 have had no maintainer reply in almost five months. No certifications or bounty (5). 20 + 15 + 2 + 0 + 5 = 42.)