A factual side-by-side of AI Agents Listing and Smithery: coverage, pricing, curation and ranking.
| Smithery | AI Agents Listing | |
|---|---|---|
| Listings | 17.5K MCP servers, 19.8K agent skills | A curated, growing catalog across all three verticals |
| Scope | MCP registry, hosted execution and agent skills | AI agents, MCP servers and agent skills, cross-linked |
| Pricing | No paid placement; monetizes hosting and platform usage | Free listings forever; transparent one-time upgrade tiers |
| Coverage | AI agentsMCP serversAgent skills | AI agentsMCP serversAgent skills |
| Notable | Acquired by Arcade.dev in August 2026; shows usage counts on listings | Every listing reviewed by a human; rankings from engagement, never from spend |
Smithery is less a directory than a platform with a directory on top. It lists about 17,500 MCP servers and, more notably, around 19,800 agent skills, the biggest skills catalog anywhere. Because it hosts execution and tracks OAuth and usage, its listings carry something we genuinely cannot replicate: real usage counts, like a server showing tens of thousands of uses. That is a strong, honest trust signal, and Smithery deserves credit for selling infrastructure rather than placement. There are no ads, no featured slots, and no dofollow product.
The trade-offs sit on the discovery side. Skills get only a dozen categories, MCP servers are browsed mostly by search and popularity, and there are no category, use-case, or alternatives pages to explore from. There is no agents vertical at all. And since Arcade.dev acquired Smithery in August 2026, the company's center of gravity is enterprise infrastructure, which may leave the public directory as a side concern.
We approach the same ecosystem from the discovery end. AI agents, MCP servers, and agent skills live in one cross-linked catalog, every entry is reviewed by a person before it publishes, and everything gets a real category. We cannot show hosted usage counts, so we rank with Heat, an engagement score that no payment can move. Listing is free forever, with transparent one-time upgrades. Our catalog is young and much smaller than Smithery's, which is the honest cost of reviewing everything.
Use Smithery if you want the largest skills selection, hosted MCP execution, and usage data straight from the runtime. Use aiagentslisting if you want a curated map of the whole stack, agents included, where skills and servers are categorized, reviewed, and connected to the agents that use them.