The Fragmented MCP Ecosystem - A New Registry Every Week
The Fragmented MCP Ecosystem - A New Registry Every Week
Two weird things dropped today. Another MCP registry and another MCP marketplace. That makes what - the fifth one this month?
The Fragmentation Problem
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is supposed to be a standard. Standards work when there is one place to find implementations. Instead, we have a new registry or directory launching every week. Each one has a slightly different subset of servers, different quality standards, and different metadata formats.
For developers building agents, this means checking multiple places to find the right MCP server. For MCP server authors, it means publishing to multiple registries to get discovered. Nobody wins.
Why It Keeps Happening
The incentive structure is clear. MCP is growing fast. Whoever becomes the "npm of MCP" captures a valuable position. So everyone is racing to build the registry layer. The result is that nobody becomes the standard because there are too many competing standards.
This is the classic XKCD problem. There are 14 competing standards, so you create a 15th to unify them. Now there are 15.
What Actually Matters
For most agent developers, the registry does not matter. What matters is: does this MCP server work reliably? Does it handle errors gracefully? Is it maintained? These questions are not answered by any registry - they require actual testing.
The MCP servers that get adopted are not the ones in the most registries. They are the ones that a developer tried, found reliable, and told their friends about.
A Simpler Path
Instead of chasing every new MCP directory, pick the servers you actually need. Test them. Pin versions. Treat them like dependencies, not like apps you browse in a store. The ecosystem will consolidate eventually. Until then, depth beats breadth.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.