# Grafana MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server

> Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do incidents. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-pagerduty-mcp
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- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-pagerduty-mcp.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do incidents.

- Grafana MCP Server: grade BB, 74.5/100, rank #69 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grafana-mcp-server.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grafana-mcp-server.json
- PagerDuty MCP Server: grade D, 48.4/100, rank #724 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pagerduty-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pagerduty-mcp.json

## Which one, for what

### Grafana MCP Server (BB)

Good for: Teams on Grafana, self-managed or Cloud, that want an agent to read dashboards and query Prometheus, Loki, Tempo and Pyroscope, and to work with alert rules, incidents and OnCall.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 91 against 52
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 74 against 49
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 95 against 32
- Transparency & trust, 79 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: The default set is 79 tools and about 107 KB of definitions, and 119 tools with every category on

### PagerDuty MCP Server (D)

Good for: Incident and on-call agents in PagerDuty shops.

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

Watch for: No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Grafana MCP Server | PagerDuty MCP Server | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 91 | 52 | Grafana MCP Server +39 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 55 | Grafana MCP Server +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 49 | Grafana MCP Server +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 66 | PagerDuty MCP Server +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 10 | Grafana MCP Server +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 32 | Grafana MCP Server +63 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 63 | Grafana MCP Server +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **74.5 · BB** | **48.4 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Grafana MCP Server | PagerDuty MCP Server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | MCP server |
| Vendor | Grafana Labs | PagerDuty |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp` |
| Transports | stdio, SSE (legacy), Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Your plan |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 119 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.grafana/mcp-grafana` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-04 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2023-12-21 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-10 | 2025-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 3.5k stars, 152k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 1.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Grafana MCP Server.** Every tool carries typed inputs and read-only, destructive and idempotent annotations, and `--disable-write` cuts the default 79 tools to 62. Writes and a general `grafana_api_request` tool are on by default, the default tool list is about 107 KB, and usage statistics have been sent to Grafana Labs by default since 2.0.0.

**PagerDuty MCP Server.** Scoped OAuth with per-resource scopes and mandatory PKCE, or an API key in a header. No read-only mode on the hosted server, where the local one was read-only by default.

## Before you call either

### Grafana MCP Server

1. Start with `--disable-write` unless the task needs writes, and add `--disable-api` to remove `grafana_api_request`
2. Pass `--enabled-tools` with only the categories needed. The default list loads 79 tools
3. Use `get_dashboard_summary` or `get_dashboard_property` with a JSONPath before `get_dashboard_by_uid`, which returns the whole dashboard JSON
4. Set `GRAFANA_USAGE_STATS=disabled` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop the four-hourly usage report to stats.grafana.org
5. Use streamable HTTP, not SSE, when each caller needs its own token or organisation, and set `--server-auth-token` on any non-loopback address

### PagerDuty MCP Server

1. Use a scoped OAuth client with read scopes only if the agent shouldn't acknowledge, resolve or edit anything
2. Use a user API key or user OAuth for `assigned` or `teams` filters. Account-level keys fail those calls
3. Pass `limit` and a `since` date on incident lists. The default limit is 1,000 records
4. EU accounts must use mcp.eu.pagerduty.com
5. On 429, wait `ratelimit-reset` seconds. There's no Retry-After header

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Grafana MCP Server or PagerDuty MCP Server?

Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against PagerDuty MCP Server's 48.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Grafana MCP Server and PagerDuty MCP Server need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Grafana MCP Server and PagerDuty MCP Server without installing anything?

Grafana MCP Server runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. PagerDuty MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.pagerduty.com/mcp.

### Are Grafana MCP Server and PagerDuty MCP Server open source?

Grafana MCP Server is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for PagerDuty MCP Server.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Grafana MCP Server or PagerDuty MCP Server

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- [Datadog MCP Server vs PagerDuty MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/datadog-mcp-vs-pagerduty-mcp.md)