The MCP leaderboard: How dev tools stack up for AI agents

MCP servers are the new SEO. If your dev tool doesn't have one, you don't exist.

Two days ago, Anthropic launched MCP Apps—MCP servers can now render interactive UIs directly inside Claude. Pretty cool huh.

The MCP Registry now lists 17,464 servers. Stripe hosts a remote MCP server at mcp.stripe.com. Supabase, Linear, Cloudflare, AWS—they all have official servers. The message is clear: if AI agents can't interact with your service, you're invisible to the fastest-growing segment of developers.

I spent some time mapping which dev tools have MCP servers and which don't. The results reveal who's positioned for the agentic era—and who's about to lose market share they don't even know they're losing.

The leaderboard

Here's where major dev tools stand on MCP integration as of January 2026:

Email

Winner: Resend and Postmark are neck-and-neck. Both have official MCP servers. SendGrid—the market leader—only has a DIY tutorial. When a developer asks Cursor to "add email functionality," the tools with native MCP support get the recommendation.

Authentication

Full coverage: Clerk's MCP server at mcp.clerk.com provides SDK snippets and implementation patterns for AI assistants. Firebase's comprehensive MCP server covers auth and much more via the Firebase CLI. The authentication category is well-served.

Database

Full coverage: Every major database has MCP support. Neon's server at mcp.neon.tech includes branching and migrations. MongoDB covers Atlas cluster management. Firebase handles Firestore, Realtime Database, and Data Connect. When AI agents need database access, every major player is in the conversation.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Winner: Cloudflare dominates with 13+ servers, but the indie favorites are competitive. Render's MCP server at mcp.render.com lets AI agents spin up services with natural language. Railway has an experimental server for their beloved deploy experience. The infrastructure layer is fully agent-accessible.

Observability & Error Tracking

Full coverage: Every major observability tool has agent access. Better Stack (the "30x cheaper than Datadog" option) has MCP at mcp.betterstack.com. New Relic's MCP is in preview. Sentry's single-line instrumentation for MCP servers themselves positions them as the observability layer for the agentic era.

Payments

Full coverage: Every major payment provider has an official MCP server. PayPal supports both local and remote MCP. Square's remote server works with Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf. Paddle covers SaaS billing and subscriptions. When AI builds payment flows, it has options everywhere.

Communications

Full coverage: Communications is covered. Vonage has official MCP documentation. Bird (formerly MessageBird) is available through the Activepieces MCP ecosystem. Every major CPaaS provider speaks MCP.

Search

Full coverage: The open-source alternatives are agent-accessible. Meilisearch has an official MCP server with full index management, document operations, and search capabilities. Typesense has a community server. The "simpler alternatives" aren't invisible—they're in the conversation.

Analytics

Note: Heap is agent-accessible via Pipedream's MCP ecosystem. Mixpanel remains the only major analytics platform without direct MCP support.

Project Management

Winner: Linear. Clean implementation, hosted remote server, works with Cursor/Claude/VS Code out of the box. Jira's complexity remains its competitive liability in the AI era.

Feature Flags

Good coverage: Flagsmith and Unleash both have MCP servers. Unleash's server is particularly interesting—it includes tools for evaluating whether code changes need feature flags. LaunchDarkly leads, but the open-source alternatives are agent-accessible. Split remains the notable gap.

AI Search Visibility (New Category)

Emerging category: As AI search becomes a real traffic source, tools for tracking visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are emerging. Superlines and Profound both have MCP servers—letting AI assistants query your brand's AI search performance. This is meta: using AI agents to optimize for AI search.

The pattern that emerges

Looking at the leaderboard, a clear picture emerges:

MCP is table stakes in most categories. Database, payments, observability, communications, search—these categories have near-universal MCP coverage. Having an MCP server is no longer a differentiator in these spaces. It's expected.

Open-source is well-represented. MongoDB, Neon, Meilisearch, Typesense, Flagsmith, Unleash—the open-source and developer-friendly alternatives are fully agent-accessible.

Developer-first companies prioritize MCP. The pattern holds: companies built around developer experience treat MCP as an extension of that experience.

The gaps that remain are telling. SendGrid (no official MCP despite being a market leader), Mixpanel (only via Segment), Jira (only community servers), Split (nothing). These aren't random—they're companies that may be underestimating how important AI-assisted development workflows have become.

The emerging battleground: AI search visibility

Here's what's notable: as MCP becomes standard for dev tools, a new category is gaining attention—tools that track how your brand appears in AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.

Superlines is the only player in this space with an MCP server. Peec AI, Profound, and Promptwatch—all focused on AI search visibility—don't have MCP support. This is the new frontier: meta-tools that help you optimize for AI recommendations, themselves accessible to AI agents.

What this means

If you're evaluating dev tools: MCP support is now expected in most categories. The absence of MCP is a signal—either the company is slow to adopt new paradigms, or they're not prioritizing developer experience.

If you're building a dev tool: In categories with full MCP coverage, it's about quality of implementation. Stripe's OAuth-secured remote server, Neon's branching support, Unleash's code change evaluation—these are the differentiating features.

If you're at a company without MCP: Your competitors are in the AI workflow. Every day without MCP is market share quietly slipping to alternatives that agents can actually use.

The invisible hand

Every time a developer asks Cursor to "add a database," "set up payments," or "implement feature flags," an AI is making a recommendation from a crowded field of MCP-enabled options.

The differentiation is now "has the best MCP experience." Remote hosted servers (like Stripe's mcp.stripe.com or Neon's mcp.neon.tech) reduce friction. OAuth support eliminates token management. Comprehensive tooling (like Firebase's 15+ tools or Cloudflare's 13+ servers) creates stickiness.

The pattern I wrote about with Resend vs SendGrid is playing out across the entire stack. The AI-friendly tools aren't just getting mentioned—they're getting installed, used, and recommended to the next project.

MCP adoption is table stakes. MCP excellence is the differentiator.

What did I miss? Which categories have gaps I haven't covered? And who's going to win the AI search visibility MCP race?