methodology v1.0 · o200k_base · newest measurement 2026-09-30

mcp-context-cost

What popular MCP servers cost in context tokens before the agent does any work — measured from raw tools/list captures, every number re-derivable from its published measurement file.

87/107servers measured
3,960median tokens
54,622priciest on the wire (github)10,735 carried · 18,728 on Claude
1pending sweep

Leaderboard

Tokens = o200k_base count of the canonical tools/list bytes — the wire payload. What a Claude request actually carries can differ sharply (a server can spend most of its schema bytes on fields no Anthropic request sends, and the denser tokenizer can push the rest back up). The trend line plots tokens across every sweep date on record (oldest→newest, dot = current); servers with one sweep so far show no line yet, and a sweep taken under different isolation than the current one is left out rather than drawn as a change in the server. Hover a row for exact numbers; method.

1 github 54,622very heavy 2 comfyui-mcp 50,268very heavy 3 agent-device 48,909very heavy 4 xcodebuildmcp 26,594heavy 5 brave-search 25,500heavy 6 anki 21,608heavy 7 notion 17,500heavy 8 mcp-atlassian 17,311heavy 9 google-surf 17,185heavy 10 grafana 16,774heavy 11 azure 14,808moderate 12 octocode 13,552moderate 13 githits 12,833moderate 14 circleci 11,912moderate 15 desktop-commander 11,063moderate 16 excel 10,493moderate 17 apify 10,452moderate 18 appium-mcp 10,267moderate 19 obsidian-rest 10,173moderate 20 firecrawl 9,561moderate 21 redis 9,246moderate 22 basic-memory 9,188moderate 23 hubspot 9,158moderate 24 accessibility-scanner 9,111moderate 25 postgres-mcp 8,632moderate 26 ssh-manager 8,446moderate 27 serena 8,204moderate 28 mongodb 7,926moderate 29 blender 6,928moderate 30 shopify-dev 6,841moderate 31 bitbucket-mcp 6,156moderate 32 agentphone 6,139moderate 33 sentry 6,086moderate 34 pinecone 5,903moderate 35 chrome-devtools 5,717moderate 36 kubernetes 5,268moderate 37 clinicaltrialsgov 5,134moderate 38 aws-documentation 5,008moderate 39 supabase 5,007moderate 40 huggingface 4,910light 41 playwright 4,413light 42 airtable 4,186light 43 codebase-memory-mcp 4,065light 44 arxiv 3,960light 45 github-legacy 3,548light 46 playwright-community 2,920light 47 chroma 2,837light 48 netlify 2,831light 49 filesystem 2,823light 50 pulumi 2,768light 51 n8n-mcp 2,636light 52 memory 2,378light 53 obsidian 2,062light 54 terraform 2,061light 55 everything 1,708light 56 tavily 1,653light 57 searxng 1,537light 58 git 1,455light 59 pandoc 1,425light 60 context7 1,052light 61 sequential-thinking 1,003light 62 bright-data 978lean 63 microsoft-learn 972lean 64 figma-context 946lean 65 duckduckgo 724lean 66 slack-legacy 681lean 67 clickhouse 632lean 68 emailmd 585lean 69 google-maps 549lean 70 puppeteer 540lean 71 neo4j-cypher 523lean 72 exa 486lean 73 airbnb 486lean 74 cloudflare-docs 422lean 75 mysql 393lean 76 elasticsearch 374lean 77 browserbase 364lean 78 deepwiki 359lean 79 gitlab 336lean 80 brave-search-legacy 319lean 81 time 293lean 82 sqlite 268lean 83 fetch 238lean 84 qdrant 188lean 85 perplexity 133lean 86 markitdown 98lean 87 postgres 32lean
lean <1K light 1–5K moderate 5–15K heavy 15–30K very heavy ≥30K

Not measured — and why

Every candidate appears; failures are findings, not omissions.

serverstatusnote
gdriveauth-requiredserver exited (code 1); stderr tail: Credentials not found. Please run with 'auth' argument first.
redis-legacynot-applicableneeds a Redis at 127.0.0.1:6379; the isolation deliberately provides no backing services — server exited (code 1); stderr tail: [Redis Retry] Attempt 1/5 failed
magicauth-requiredserver error -32001 answering initialize: Not authenticated - your API key is missing or was reset. Get a fresh key at https://21st.dev/mcp and update your MCP
stripeauth-requiredserver exited (code 1); stderr tail: 🚨 Error initializing Stripe MCP server: Invalid API key format. Expected sk_* (secret key) or rk_* (restricted key).
herokustartup-failurereproduced with the shared package cache bypassed; server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Fatal error in main(): Cannot find module '/tmp/.npm-cache/_npx/909ffbc9
neonstartup-failurereproduced with the shared package cache bypassed; server exited (code 1); stderr tail: npm warn deprecated @neondatabase/mcp-server-neon@0.6.5: This package is
linearremote-auth-wallOAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured
zapierremote-auth-wallOAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured
vercelremote-auth-wallOAuth-gated remote server; listed, not measured
gmailauth-requiredserver exited (code 1); stderr tail: Error: OAuth keys file not found. Please place gcp-oauth.keys.json in current directory or /tmp/.gmail-mcp
slackstartup-failurereproduced with the shared package cache bypassed; server exited (code 1); stderr tail: {"level":"error","timestamp":"2026-09
kubernetes-containersnot-applicableneeds a kubeconfig with a cluster context; the isolation deliberately has neither — server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Error: unable to create kubernetes targ
hana-clistartup-failurereproduced with the shared package cache bypassed; server exited (code 1); stderr tail: widely publicized security vulnerabilities, which have been fixed in the
keboolaauth-requiredserver error 0 answering tools/list: Client error '401 Unauthorized' for url 'https://connection.keboola.com/v2/storage/tokens/verify' For more information chec
hevyauth-requiredserver exited (code 1); stderr tail: Hevy API key is required. Provide it via the HEVY_API_KEY environment variable.
local-mcpnot-applicablethe vendor ships no Linux runtime yet — its own Go server is in preview for Windows and Linux — server exited (code 1); stderr tail: LMCP v3.0.415 (linux-amd64)
windows-mcpnot-applicableWindows only — it depends on pywin32, which publishes no Linux wheels — server exited (code 1); stderr tail: Downloading cpython-3.14.3-linux-x86_64-gnu (downlo
yandex-trackerauth-requiredserver exited (code 1); stderr tail: Downloading aiohttp (1.7MiB) Downloading grpcio-tools (2.6MiB) Downloading yandexcloud (6.5MiB) Downloaded aiohttp Downlo
safari-mcpnot-applicablemacOS only — the package declares os darwin and npm refuses to install it on Linux — server exited (code 1); stderr tail: npm error code EBADPLATFORM npm error

The badge

A shields.io endpoint badge backed by a reproducible measurement — merge one line into a README.

context cost32 tokensbadges/postgres.json
context cost54,622 tokensbadges/github.json
[![context cost](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=<raw badges/<server>.json URL>)](<methodology URL>)
Full data table
#serverwire (o200k)mappedclaude reqtoolsbandcategorytrend
1github54,62210,73518,72844very heavyvendor-official+200 over 4 sweeps
2comfyui-mcp50,26849,877—41very heavycommunity−372 over 5 sweeps
3agent-device48,90933,319—57very heavycommunity−4,760 over 2 sweeps
4xcodebuildmcp26,5942,6765,33524heavycommunity0 over 6 sweeps
5brave-search25,5008,291—8heavyvendor-official+44 over 6 sweeps
6anki21,60810,032—53heavycommunity+1,571 over 3 sweeps
7notion17,50017,16333,56024heavyvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
8mcp-atlassian17,31112,823—63heavycommunity0 over 6 sweeps
9google-surf17,18511,434—7heavycommunity+6,237 over 4 sweeps
10grafana16,77415,46026,64165heavyvendor-official—
11azure14,80813,844—71moderatevendor-official−431 over 3 sweeps
12octocode13,55212,96723,34314moderatecommunity0 over 2 sweeps
13githits12,83312,38420,68916moderatecommunity+233 over 2 sweeps
14circleci11,91211,75519,16413moderatevendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
15desktop-commander11,06310,283—26moderatecommunity−772 over 6 sweeps
16excel10,4937,798—26moderatecommunity+6,227 over 6 sweeps
17apify10,4524,7938,29710moderatevendor-official+26 over 4 sweeps
18appium-mcp10,2679,79817,00131moderatevendor-official0 over 2 sweeps
19obsidian-rest10,1735,87810,17212moderatecommunity0 over 2 sweeps
20firecrawl9,5618,86916,42827moderatevendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
21redis9,2467,48913,22153moderatevendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
22basic-memory9,1887,12012,42623moderatecommunity0 over 4 sweeps
23hubspot9,1588,43314,39821moderatevendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
24accessibility-scanner9,1118,055—33moderatecommunity+152 over 3 sweeps
25postgres-mcp8,6321,1782,3819moderatecommunity0 over 4 sweeps
26ssh-manager8,4468,14914,19637moderatecommunity0 over 2 sweeps
27serena8,2046,55011,49429moderatecommunity0 over 4 sweeps
28mongodb7,9264,5018,76527moderatevendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
29blender6,9286,16010,57628moderatecommunity+1,670 over 4 sweeps
30shopify-dev6,8416,79311,8316moderatevendor-official+1,217 over 4 sweeps
31bitbucket-mcp6,1566,15612,21047moderatecommunity0 over 5 sweeps
32agentphone6,1395,587—28moderatecommunity+5 over 3 sweeps
33sentry6,0865,4429,4819moderatevendor-official−369 over 4 sweeps
34pinecone5,9035,6799,1849moderatevendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
35chrome-devtools5,7175,1009,21529moderatevendor-official0 over 2 sweeps
36kubernetes5,2685,0899,16523moderatecommunity0 over 6 sweeps
37clinicaltrialsgov5,1342,8795,5407moderatecommunity0 over 2 sweeps
38aws-documentation5,0083,367—5moderatevendor-official−66 over 7 sweeps
39supabase5,0074,0627,32329moderatevendor-official−6 over 4 sweeps
40huggingface4,9101,796—4lightvendor-official+219 over 6 sweeps
41playwright4,4133,764—25lightvendor-official+389 over 6 sweeps
42airtable4,1862,5314,55516lightcommunity−21 over 6 sweeps
43codebase-memory-mcp4,0653,606—17lightcommunity−1,193 over 5 sweeps
44arxiv3,9603,6996,62219lightcommunity+732 over 4 sweeps
45github-legacy3,5483,5486,66226lightofficial-reference0 over 4 sweeps
46playwright-community2,9202,9205,68833lightcommunity0 over 4 sweeps
47chroma2,8372,8375,22213lightvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
48netlify2,8312,6785,2299lightvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
49filesystem2,8231,6653,11514lightofficial-reference0 over 4 sweeps
50pulumi2,7682,6604,67112lightvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
51n8n-mcp2,6362,0223,9027lightcommunity0 over 4 sweeps
52memory2,3789011,8809lightofficial-reference0 over 13 sweeps
53obsidian2,0622,0623,86115lightcommunity+930 over 6 sweeps
54terraform2,0611,7183,2489lightvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
55everything1,7081,0822,24813lightofficial-reference0 over 7 sweeps
56tavily1,6531,6533,0965lightvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
57searxng1,5371,4802,7264lightcommunity+56 over 4 sweeps
58git1,4551,1192,38212lightofficial-reference0 over 5 sweeps
59pandoc1,4251,4252,6281lightcommunity0 over 6 sweeps
60context71,0529851,8832lightvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
61sequential-thinking1,0038651,8041lightofficial-reference+11 over 5 sweeps
62bright-data9788791,8595leanvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
63microsoft-learn9727261,6123leanvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
64figma-context9468981,7732leancommunity0 over 6 sweeps
65duckduckgo7246611,3222leancommunity0 over 4 sweeps
66slack-legacy6816811,4838leanofficial-reference0 over 7 sweeps
67clickhouse6324951,1823leanvendor-official+51 over 4 sweeps
68emailmd5855421,2553leancommunity0 over 3 sweeps
69google-maps5495491,3327leanofficial-reference0 over 4 sweeps
70puppeteer5405401,2677leanofficial-reference0 over 4 sweeps
71neo4j-cypher5233548843leanvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
72exa4864149682leanvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
73airbnb4864861,1692leancommunity0 over 4 sweeps
74cloudflare-docs4222527562leanvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
75mysql3933348683leancommunity0 over 6 sweeps
76elasticsearch3743749874leanvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
77browserbase3643108696leanvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
78deepwiki3592337073leanvendor-official0 over 4 sweeps
79gitlab336336—9leanofficial-reference0 over 6 sweeps
80brave-search-legacy3193198002leanofficial-reference0 over 6 sweeps
81time2932397032leanofficial-reference0 over 3 sweeps
82sqlite2682688066leanofficial-reference0 over 3 sweeps
83fetch2382387001leanofficial-reference0 over 3 sweeps
84qdrant1881886072leanvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
85perplexity1331335031leanvendor-official0 over 6 sweeps
86markitdown9864—1leanvendor-official+34 over 7 sweeps
87postgres32323481leanofficial-reference0 over 6 sweeps