MCP Ecosystem Statistics 2026
The Model Context Protocol by the numbers — SDK downloads, server counts across registries, governance facts, and growth since the Linux Foundation donation.
MCP's growth since the December 2025 Linux Foundation donation, measured against live registries: SDK downloads roughly 4x'd in six months (npm SDK 38.5M→153M monthly; PyPI's mcp adds 268M), registries list 6,000–22,000 servers depending on curation bar, and the AAIF has grown to ~146 members (from 41 at the December 2025 launch). Every count dated and sourced.
Key takeaways
- At donation (December 9, 2025): 97M+ monthly SDK downloads and ~10,000 active servers — the official baseline numbers from Anthropic and the Linux Foundation.
- Six months later: the npm TypeScript SDK alone exceeds 150M monthly downloads (4x its December rate) and PyPI's mcp package adds ~268M — combined core-SDK volume roughly quadrupled.
- Server counts depend on the registry's bar: Smithery curates ~6,200, PulseMCP tracks ~18,200, mcp.so self-reports ~22,000 — cite the registry with the number, never a bare 'there are X servers.'
- Governance is genuinely multi-vendor now: the Agentic AI Foundation's eight Platinum members include Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, AWS, and Block, with the supporting Gold/Silver roster now past 130 members (up from 41 at launch).
- The reference monorepo (modelcontextprotocol/servers) sits at ~87k GitHub stars — top-thousandth-percentile open source — with first-class client support across ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Gemini, Copilot, and VS Code.
MCP went from Anthropic side-project (November 2024) to Linux Foundation standard (December 2025) to — by mid-2026 — infrastructure whose download counts resemble a major package ecosystem. The numbers below are pulled live from registries and primary announcements, dated June 12, 2026, and refreshed on a cadence; circulating figures we couldn't trace are omitted.
The baseline: donation day (December 9, 2025)
From the Anthropic and Linux Foundation announcements (primary):
- 97M+ monthly SDK downloads across the official SDKs
- ~10,000 active/published MCP servers
- First-class client support named at donation: ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, VS Code
- The Agentic AI Foundation launched with founding projects MCP, goose (Block), and AGENTS.md (OpenAI — itself in 60,000+ open-source projects), and founding members AWS, Anthropic, Block, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI
Six months later: the growth curve
Measured directly from registry APIs, June 12, 2026 (primary):
| Metric | Dec 2025 | Jun 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
npm @modelcontextprotocol/sdk, monthly downloads | 38.5M | ~153M | npm registry API |
PyPI mcp package, monthly downloads | — | ~268M | pypistats |
PyPI fastmcp, monthly downloads | — | ~74M | pypistats |
| Combined core SDKs | ~97M (all SDKs, official figure) | ~420M (npm+PyPI core alone) | computed |
Roughly a 4x rise in six months on the cleanest comparable series — and since the June figure counts only the two core packages, it understates the total.
How many servers? Name the registry
| Registry | Servers (Jun 12, 2026) | Bar |
|---|---|---|
| Smithery | 6,222 | Curated registry (API totalCount) |
| PulseMCP | 18,233 | Broad daily-updated tracker |
| mcp.so | ~22,182 | Self-reported directory count |
The spread is the lesson: "how many MCP servers exist" has no single answer — curation bars differ by 3.5x — so any citation should name its registry. (The official registry exposes no public total; we don't quote one.) What the spread agrees on: supply outgrew discovery, which is why the shortlist matters more than the catalog and governance became its own discipline.
Ecosystem signals
- modelcontextprotocol/servers: ~87,100 GitHub stars; the Python SDK ~23,300, TypeScript SDK ~12,700, spec repo ~8,400 (GitHub API, primary).
- AAIF membership beyond the founding eight: 18 Gold members at launch (including Cisco, Datadog, Docker, IBM, JetBrains, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Shopify, Snowflake) and 23 Silver (including Hugging Face, Uber, Zapier, Pydantic, Elastic), since expanded to 146 total members by February 2026 (Linux Foundation, primary).
- The protocol's sibling under the same roof: A2A for agent-to-agent, donated by Google in mid-2025 — both halves of the agent stack now sit in neutral governance.
The arc these numbers trace: MCP won the agent-to-tool layer the way standards win — not by mandate but by default-ness, until "does it speak MCP" stopped being a question. The practical guides for living in that ecosystem: adding servers to Claude Code and the 2026 server shortlist.
Frequently asked questions
- How many MCP servers exist in 2026?
- Between ~6,000 and ~22,000, depending on who's counting and how: Smithery's curated registry lists 6,222, PulseMCP tracks 18,233, and mcp.so self-reports 22,182 (all June 12, 2026). The official line at the December 2025 donation was 'over 10,000 published servers.' The honest answer names the registry; the practical answer is that discovery, not supply, is the constraint.
- How fast is MCP growing?
- The cleanest series is SDK downloads: at donation (December 2025) the project cited 97M monthly across SDKs; by June 2026 the npm TypeScript SDK alone runs ~153M/month (vs 38.5M in December) and PyPI's mcp package ~268M/month — combined core-SDK volume roughly 4x in six months, measured directly from registry APIs.
- Who controls MCP now?
- The Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, since December 9, 2025 — co-founded by Anthropic (donating MCP), Block (goose), and OpenAI (AGENTS.md), with AWS, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, and Microsoft completing the founding eight, plus 41 gold/silver members at launch (Cisco to Hugging Face), a roster since grown past 130. Anthropic stated maintainers and governance processes carried over unchanged.
Related
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- MCP vs A2A: AI Agent Protocols ExplainedWhat MCP and A2A each standardize, how Agent Cards and Tasks work, why the protocols are complementary — and who governs them now (spoiler: both are Linux Foundation).
- Adding MCP Servers to Claude Code: Local, Remote, and Project-ScopedThe complete claude mcp add reference — stdio vs HTTP transports, local/project/user scopes, .mcp.json with env expansion, OAuth via /mcp, and the gotchas.
- Connecting and Governing MCP Servers: Registries, Gateways, and Tool SprawlAs MCP servers multiply, discovery, trust, and tool sprawl become the problem. How registries, gateways, and curation keep a growing fleet secure and usable.
- AI Coding Statistics 2026: The Numbers That Are Actually SourcedHow much code AI writes, who uses the tools, and what it does to quality — every statistic dated and traced to its primary source, updated on a cadence.
- SmitheryA registry and hosting platform for Model Context Protocol servers — discover, deploy, and connect MCP servers from one place.