Head to head · Incidents · October 2026 research run
Grafana MCP Server vs Rootly MCP Server
Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Rootly MCP Server's 59.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do incidents.
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Which one, for what
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 48
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 95 against 81
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
Watch for
The default set is 79 tools, and 119 with every category on, counted from the registration code in source
Good for Incident and on-call agents in teams that already run Rootly.
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
Hosted connections expose write tools by default, and the docs describe the read-only switch only for servers the owner runs
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Grafana MCP Server | Rootly MCP Server | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 91 | 48 | Grafana MCP Server +43 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 81 | 78 | Grafana MCP Server +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 74 | 77 | Rootly MCP Server +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 65 | 65 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 20 | Grafana MCP Server +40 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 95 | 81 | Grafana MCP Server +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 79 | 80 | Rootly MCP Server +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -3 | |
| Total | 74.5 · BB | 59.7 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Grafana MCP Server | Rootly MCP Server |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | MCP server | MCP server |
| Vendor | Grafana Labs | Rootly Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://mcp.rootly.com/mcp |
| Transports | stdio, SSE (legacy), Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy), stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Price for incidents | free | $20 per seat per month |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 for the server. The hosted service runs under Rootly's Terms of Use |
| Tools exposed | 119 | 218 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | io.github.grafana/mcp-grafana | com.rootly/mcp-server |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-07-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-10 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | |
| Popularity | 3.5k stars, 152k PyPI/wk | none |
Verdicts
Grafana MCP Server
Every default tool declares typed inputs and read-only and destructive annotations in source, and --disable-write cuts the default 79 tools to 62. Writes and a general grafana_api_request tool are on by default, the default list is long at 79 tools, and usage statistics have been sent to Grafana Labs by default since 2.0.0.
Rootly MCP Server
The server is open source under Apache-2.0, ships a dated release about every two weeks, and has a slim profile and a Code Mode endpoint that cut the 218-tool list. Hosted connections expose write tools by default, and the 2.3.21 changelog records telemetry changes that broke tool calls for clients with cached schemas in late September 2026.
Before you call either
Grafana MCP Server
- Start with
--disable-writeunless the task needs writes, and add--disable-apito removegrafana_api_request - Pass
--enabled-toolswith only the categories needed. The default list loads 79 tools - Use
get_dashboard_summaryorget_dashboard_propertywith a JSONPath beforeget_dashboard_by_uid, which returns the whole dashboard JSON - Set
GRAFANA_USAGE_STATS=disabledorDO_NOT_TRACK=1to stop the four-hourly usage report to stats.grafana.org - Use streamable HTTP, not SSE, when each caller needs its own token or organisation, and set
--server-auth-tokenon any non-loopback address
Rootly MCP Server
- Connect to
https://mcp.rootly.com/mcp-codemodeor add?tool_profile=slimto/mcp. The default endpoint loads about 218 tool definitions - Connect Code Mode in place of the classic endpoint, not beside it. The docs say models skip
executewhen both are present - Use a Global API key for
get_oncall_handoff_summaryandget_oncall_shift_metrics. Team and personal keys return partial results - Refetch the tool list after a server release. Curated tools reject undeclared arguments, which failed calls from cached schemas in September 2026
- Treat a 404 from a generated tool as a possible plan limit or missing parent record, and read the hint in the response
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Grafana MCP Server or Rootly MCP Server?
Grafana MCP Server scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Rootly MCP Server's 59.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.
Which is cheaper for incidents, Grafana MCP Server or Rootly MCP Server?
Grafana MCP Server, at free against $20 per seat per month for Rootly MCP Server. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.
Do Grafana MCP Server and Rootly MCP Server need an API key?
Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Grafana MCP Server and Rootly MCP Server without installing anything?
Grafana MCP Server runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Rootly MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.rootly.com/mcp.
Are Grafana MCP Server and Rootly MCP Server open source?
Yes. Grafana MCP Server is open source (Apache-2.0). Rootly MCP Server is open source (Apache-2.0 for the server. The hosted service runs under Rootly's Terms of Use).
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/grafana-mcp-server-vs-rootly-mcp.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/grafana-mcp-server.json·/api/v1/tools/rootly-mcp.json - From a terminal
anchor compare grafana-mcp-server rootly-mcp(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "grafana-mcp-server", "b": "rootly-mcp"}at/mcp, no key