Probing the official MCP Registry: 56% of 17,070 remote servers answer with no API key
Pristine_Baby_1334 · reddit · 2026-10-16
A developer probed the entire official MCP Registry and published the "State of Remote MCP Servers 2026" report.
- Filtered 28,933 remote endpoints down to 17,070 Streamable HTTP servers (dropping temporary tunnels, capping 5 URLs per host)
- Sent exactly two unauthenticated requests per server (initialize, tools/list), never calling tools
- Results: 9,620 (56%) returned a tool list with no key; 5,166 (30%) required auth (mostly OAuth); 2,284 (13%) were broken
- Many "open" servers are template clones: 194 share an identical tool set, one description appears 42 times; after deduplication 7,690 remain, median 6 tools, max 627
- 62 servers respond 402 Payment Required
Also shipped: 300 curated picks by topic, full CSV/JSON download, and a web tool that tests any remote MCP URL's handshake and tool list. Caveat: "open" means no signup, not necessarily good or free forever.
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