# GitLab MCP Server vs Sourcegraph MCP Server

> GitLab scores 67.3 (B) to Sourcegraph's 61.5 (C) for code repositories. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md (~4,600 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

GitLab MCP Server scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Sourcegraph MCP Server's 61.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Sourcegraph MCP Server leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do code repositories.

- GitLab MCP Server: grade B, 67.3/100, rank #334 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gitlab-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gitlab-mcp.json
- Sourcegraph MCP Server: grade C, 61.5/100, rank #608 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sourcegraph-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sourcegraph-mcp.json
- Best code, repository and documentation tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/code/index.md
- All 62 code comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/code/index.md

## Which one, for what

### GitLab MCP Server (B)

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:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 71
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 87 against 78

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Sourcegraph MCP Server loses 3 points for them

Watch for: About 47 tools load by default before any toolset header

### Sourcegraph MCP Server (C)

Good for: A company that already runs Sourcegraph and wants agents to search and navigate many repositories with compiler-accurate definitions and references.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 66
- Security & auth, 76 against 66

Watch for: Enterprise plans only, from a $16,000 minimum annual contract through sales. A Cloud trial is by request and subject to eligibility


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: GitLab MCP Server +15

- 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.
- Sourcegraph MCP Server (15): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The pricing page publishes a starting figure, a $16K minimum annual contract, with no per-user or per-call price and a contact-sales button, so half of the plan-pricing credit (5). A free Sourcegraph Cloud trial exists by request, with eligibility reviewed and a wait of up to an hour in business hours. No card is mentioned, so half credit (10). An agent cannot gain access alone. A company needs a contract or an approved trial, and a user approves OAuth in a browser (0).

### Schema & documentation: GitLab MCP Server +14

- 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.
- Sourcegraph MCP Server (71): The docs list each tool's parameters with required and optional marks, defaults and maximums. We could not read the tool definitions themselves, because every endpoint needs an Enterprise instance, so the machine-readable contract earns partial credit (15). /llms.txt and /docs/llms.txt return 404, but every docs page is served as Markdown at its URL plus .md (10). Tool entries state use cases, `code_finder` has best practices and a contrast with `deepsearch`, and a matrix shows which endpoint carries which tool (14). Required fields, defaults and bounds are documented, while search filters travel inside one query string and `evaluator` takes a free Lua script (9). `list_refs` has JSON examples and the authentication page has a troubleshooting table for `invalid_scope`, 401, 403 and 404, with no catalogue of tool errors (8). Versioned releases with dated MCP entries in the changelog (15).

### Security & auth: Sourcegraph MCP Server +10

- 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.
- Sourcegraph MCP Server (76): OAuth 2.0 with PKCE, dynamic client registration held to the `mcp` scope, one-hour access tokens, a revocation endpoint and bearer tokens in the header only. Access tokens can also carry the `mcp` scope and default to a 90-day expiry (30). Every documented tool reads, repository permissions apply to each call, and admins can gate MCP by RBAC role or disable single tools. There is no per-repository grant narrower than the user's own access (18). The tools return repository content, which is untrusted input. The consent screen warns that the `mcp` scope grants read access to private code, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (4). The audit log records access token use, repository access and API requests as structured logs for a SIEM. No MCP-specific call log is documented (9). SOC 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 on the security portal, annual third-party penetration tests, CVE fixes named in release notes and an invite-only HackerOne programme reached through security@sourcegraph.com. security.txt returned 404 again on 4 November 2026 (15).

### Transparency & trust: GitLab MCP Server +9

- 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.
- Sourcegraph MCP Server (78): Closed source under the Sourcegraph Terms of Service, last modified 22 July 2026, with supplemental terms listed in one index (15). The terms, the DPA, the security page and the privacy policy describe data handling. Cloud logs are kept up to 365 days, partner LLMs keep inputs only for abuse detection, and the privacy policy excludes customer code, which falls under the customer agreement. No retention period for code or search queries on Cloud was found (22). The current and previous major versions are supported, and release notes date removals such as the end of GitHub Enterprise Server 3.3 support, but no deprecation policy with a notice period for MCP tools was found (10). Sub-processors are listed with locations and purposes, last modified 21 August 2026, with email notice of changes, and instance telemetry is documented (18).

### Agent ergonomics: Sourcegraph MCP Server +6

- GitLab MCP Server (66): About 47 tools by default, plus 5 Duo tools where Duo is on, so more than 30 (5), with toolset and single-tool headers to cut the list (plus 10). Cursor pagination with first and after on most list tools, include facets one at a time, byte offsets and limits on files, jobs and artifacts (20). Documented error cases and a structured rate_limited result (15). The docs don't say whether tools carry readOnlyHint or destructiveHint; accept_merge_request has a SHA guard, and 19.4 governance sets write and delete tools to Always Ask for Duo (8). Sensible default toolsets, but no official SDKs for the REST API in two languages were found on the pages read (8). 15 + 20 + 15 + 8 + 8 = 66.
- Sourcegraph MCP Server (72): Sixteen documented tools on /.api/mcp/all, nine on the default endpoint and two on /.api/mcp/deepsearch, and admins can remove tools with `mcp.tools.disabled`. Definition sizes are unread (23). Result limits on every list and search tool, an `after` cursor on `compare_revisions`, `count` on searches and line ranges on `read_file` (17). Search tools report incomplete results with retry advice per the 8.0.0 notes, and 8.1.0 (14 October 2026) reports timeouts as errors and query-planning failures as invalid-argument errors rather than server errors, and HTTP 401, 403 and 404 causes are documented, but no tool error list was found (10). No tool writes to a repository, so repeating a call is safe. `deepsearch` creates a conversation each time, and we could not read the readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations (10). Most tools need one to three parameters with stated defaults. There is no SDK to count, as the surface is MCP only (12).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | GitLab MCP Server | Sourcegraph MCP Server | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 62 | 60 | GitLab MCP Server +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 71 | GitLab MCP Server +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 72 | Sourcegraph MCP Server +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 76 | Sourcegraph MCP Server +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 15 | GitLab MCP Server +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 83 | GitLab MCP Server +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 78 | GitLab MCP Server +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **67.3 · B** | **61.5 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | GitLab MCP Server | Sourcegraph MCP Server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | MCP server |
| Vendor | GitLab Inc. | Sourcegraph, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://gitlab.com/api/v4/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary. The server is part of the Sourcegraph Enterprise product under the Sourcegraph Terms of Service |
| Tools exposed | 47 | 16 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `com.gitlab/mcp` | `io.github.sourcegraph/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-07-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-23 | 2026-06-12 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |

## How the scores have moved

### GitLab MCP Server

No score change since it was listed.

### Sourcegraph MCP Server

- +4.0 on 4 November 2026: new evidence, correction

## Verdicts

**GitLab MCP Server.** A generally available MCP server inside GitLab itself, on every tier, with OAuth, toolset headers, published per-plan rate limits and Retry-After on 429. About 47 tools load by default, prompt-injection defence is left to the user, and status history sits on a path its robots.txt closes to us.

**Sourcegraph MCP Server.** Sixteen read-only tools search and navigate code across every repository an instance indexes, with OAuth limited to an `mcp` scope and repository permissions enforced on each call. Access needs an Enterprise contract, priced from $16,000 a year, and no request rate limits were found in the reviewed documentation.

## Before you call either

### GitLab MCP Server

1. Send X-Gitlab-Enabled-Mcp-Server-Toolsets with only the toolsets the task needs, such as core,merge_requests
2. Ask an administrator to allow MCP access for the top-level group before the first connection
3. Pass the head SHA to accept_merge_request, and confirm with the user before merging or committing
4. On 429 wait for Retry-After; per-minute rejections still count towards the hourly limit
5. Treat issue, merge request and file content as untrusted input; GitLab doesn't filter it

### Sourcegraph MCP Server

1. Connect to https://<instance>/.api/mcp for the nine core tools. Use /.api/mcp/all for `go_to_definition`, `find_references`, `list_refs`, `get_contributor_repos`, `compare_revisions`, `deepsearch` and `nls_search`
2. Request only the `mcp` scope in OAuth. Any other scope on the MCP resource fails with `invalid_scope`
3. Without OAuth, send `Authorization: token <access token>` and create the token with the `mcp` scope and an expiry
4. Call `list_repos` first and name the repository in every `code_finder` task. It declines broad searches across repositories
5. Read large files with `startLine` and `endLine`. Files over 128KB return only the first 200 lines

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, GitLab MCP Server or Sourcegraph MCP Server?

GitLab MCP Server scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Sourcegraph MCP Server's 61.5 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Sourcegraph MCP Server leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

### Do GitLab MCP Server and Sourcegraph MCP Server need an API key?

GitLab MCP Server uses an OAuth sign-in. Sourcegraph MCP Server takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call GitLab MCP Server and Sourcegraph MCP Server without installing anything?

GitLab MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://gitlab.com/api/v4/mcp. No hosted endpoint is listed for Sourcegraph MCP Server.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "gitlab-mcp", "b": "sourcegraph-mcp"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare gitlab-mcp sourcegraph-mcp`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gitlab-mcp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sourcegraph-mcp.json

## Other comparisons with GitLab MCP Server or Sourcegraph MCP Server

- [Azure DevOps MCP Server vs GitLab MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-devops-mcp-vs-gitlab-mcp.md)
- [Azure DevOps MCP Server vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-devops-mcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [Entire vs GitLab MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/entire-vs-gitlab-mcp.md)
- [Entire vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/entire-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [GitHub MCP Server vs GitLab MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-mcp-server-vs-gitlab-mcp.md)
- [GitHub MCP Server vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/github-mcp-server-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs GitMCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-gitmcp.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs graft](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-graft.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs Graphify](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-graphify.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs TokenEconomizer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-tokeneconomizer.md)
- [GitMCP vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitmcp-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [Graphify vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphify-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [Sourcegraph MCP Server vs TokenEconomizer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sourcegraph-mcp-vs-tokeneconomizer.md)
- [Git (MCP reference server) vs GitLab MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/git-reference-server-vs-gitlab-mcp.md)
- [Git (MCP reference server) vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/git-reference-server-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs Superpowers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-superpowers.md)
- [graft vs Sourcegraph MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graft-vs-sourcegraph-mcp.md)
- [Sourcegraph MCP Server vs Superpowers](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sourcegraph-mcp-vs-superpowers.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs Salesforce DX MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-salesforce-dx-mcp.md)
- [GitLab MCP Server vs Void](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gitlab-mcp-vs-void.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp