Assay — MCP Comparison
Description: Compare Assay with 42 popular MCP servers. One 9 MB binary replaces dozens of MCP server processes.

# Assay vs MCP Servers

One 9 MB binary replaces dozens of MCP server processes. 25 domains fully covered, 15+ coming soon.

Size comparison: 10 MCP servers ≈ 500 MB npm deps + 10 processes. Assay = 9 MB + 1 process.

## Before & After

Today, wiring MCP servers into your `.mcp.json` means one `npx` process per domain:

### Before: 10 MCP servers in .mcp.json

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "kubernetes": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "mcp-server-kubernetes"] },
        "grafana": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@grafana/mcp-grafana"] },
        "postgres": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@singlestore/postgres-mcp"] },
        "vault": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "vault-mcp-server"] },
        "s3": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@aws/mcp", "s3"] },
        "prometheus": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "prometheus-mcp-server"] },
        "filesystem": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem"] },
        "argocd": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "argocd-mcp"] },
        "harbor": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "harbor-mcp"] },
        "certmanager": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "certmanager-mcp"] }
      }
    }

### After: 1 Assay entry (Coming Soon in v0.6.0)

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "assay": {
          "command": "assay",
          "args": ["mcp-serve"],
          "note": "Coming Soon in v0.6.0 — replaces all 10 servers above"
        }
      }
    }

Today: Use `assay context <query>` to get module docs for your LLM agent. See Agent Guides.

## Coverage Key

- ✅ Full — Feature parity or better via Assay builtins/stdlib
- 🟡 Partial — Some capabilities covered, others missing
- 🟠 Coming Soon — Planned for a future Assay release
- ❌ Out of Scope — Not an Assay goal (browser automation, web search, IDE tooling)

## Comparison Table

MCP Server | Stars | Assay Equivalent | Coverage
--- | --- | --- | ---
Tier 1: 10K+ Stars
modelcontextprotocol/servers (fetch, filesystem) | 79K | `http.*` builtins + `fs.*` builtins | ✅ Full
browser-use | 35K | — | ❌ Out of Scope (browser automation)
cline/mcp-server | 40K | — | ❌ Out of Scope (IDE tool)
aws/mcp (S3, Lambda, EC2) | 8.2K | `assay.s3` (S3 only) | 🟡 Partial
Tier 2: 2K–10K Stars
@grafana/mcp-grafana | 2.4K | `assay.grafana` + `assay.prometheus` + `assay.loki` + `assay.alertmanager` | ✅ Full
mcp-server-github | ~5K | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
mcp-server-git | ~5K | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
mcp-server-slack | ~3K | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
@singlestore/postgres-mcp | 2.1K | `assay.postgres` + `db.*` builtins | ✅ Full
mcp-server-docker | ~2K | `assay.harbor` (registry) | 🟡 Partial
mcp-server-redis | ~2K | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
mcp-server-kubernetes | 1.3K | `assay.k8s` | ✅ Full
Tier 3: 500–2K Stars
mcp-server-mongodb | ~800 | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
mcp-server-sqlite | ~600 | `db.*` builtins | ✅ Full
mcp-server-elasticsearch | ~500 | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
mcp-server-mysql | ~400 | `db.*` builtins | ✅ Full
mcp-server-jira | ~400 | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
prometheus-mcp-server | 372 | `assay.prometheus` | ✅ Full
terraform-mcp-server | ~300 | `assay.crossplane` (infra-as-code) | 🟡 Partial
mcp-server-sentry | ~300 | — | 🟠 Coming Soon
argocd-mcp | ~200 | `assay.argocd` | ✅ Full
mcp-server-s3 | ~200 | `assay.s3` | ✅ Full
mcp-server-jwt | ~100 | `crypto.jwt_sign` builtin | ✅ Full
traefik-mcp | ~100 | `assay.traefik` | ✅ Full
mcp-server-temporal | ~100 | `assay.temporal` | ✅ Full
harbor-mcp | ~50 | `assay.harbor` | ✅ Full
mcp-certmanager | ~50 | `assay.certmanager` | ✅ Full
flux-mcp | ~50 | `assay.flux` | ✅ Full
vault-mcp-server | 31 | `assay.vault` + `assay.openbao` | ✅ Full
crossplane-mcp | ~30 | `assay.crossplane` | ✅ Full
unleash-mcp | ~30 | `assay.unleash` | ✅ Full
velero-mcp | ~30 | `assay.velero` | ✅ Full
kargo-mcp | ~20 | `assay.kargo` | ✅ Full
zitadel-mcp | ~20 | `assay.zitadel` | ✅ Full
eso-mcp | ~20 | `assay.eso` | ✅ Full
dex-mcp | ~10 | `assay.dex` | ✅ Full
Tier 4: Anthropic/Model Reference
playwright-mcp | ~5K | — | ❌ Out of Scope (browser)
exa-mcp-server | ~1K | — | ❌ Out of Scope (web search)
@anthropic/mcp-server-filesystem | ref | `fs.*` builtins | ✅ Full
@anthropic/mcp-server-fetch | ref | `http.*` builtins | ✅ Full
mcp-server-websocket | ~100 | `ws.*` builtins | ✅ Full
mcp-server-crypto | ~50 | `crypto.*` builtins | ✅ Full

✅ 25+ domains fully covered · 🟠 10+ Coming Soon · ❌ 4 out of scope (browser, web search, IDE)