# Smithery

> Freemium MCP registry, gateway, and hosting marketplace

**Category:** AI Agents  
**Pricing:** freemium  
**URL:** https://smithery.ai  
**GitHub:** https://github.com/arcadeai-labs/smithery-cli  
**Added:** 2026-09-14

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## The Hook

Smithery is the MCP marketplace: discover servers, publish URLs/bundles, and optionally host or gateway them.

## What's Good

Registry + docs at smithery.ai. Publish remote HTTPS MCP or local MCPB bundles; gateway proxies upstream; CLI (@smithery/cli / smithery-ai/cli) for publish/install flows. Speeds discovery versus hunting random GitHub READMEs.

## The Catch

Vs FastMCP (build servers) and mcp-inspector (debug): Smithery is distribution/hosting, not an SDK. Hosted registry is proprietary SaaS — supply-chain risk is real (past hosting incidents in the ecosystem). Prefer BYO HTTPS publish if you distrust hosted builds. Free discovery ≠ free infinite hosting.

## Verdict

Freemium MCP registry/host. Discover fast; treat hosted builds as trust boundary.
