MCP Inspector
The official MCP debugging and testing tool maintained by the Model Context Protocol project. Visual inspector for MCP servers: invoke tools, inspect transports, validate protocol behaviour during development. 9,647 GitHub stars and 32 commits on main in the last 30 days.
“The official MCP debugging and testing tool maintained by the Model Context Protocol project. Visual inspector for MCP servers: invoke tools, inspect transports, validate protocol behaviour during development. 9,647 GitHub stars and 32 commits on main in the last 30 days. Top star count in this batch.”
INSTALL THIS SERVER
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspector": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
]
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspector": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
]
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspector": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
]
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspector": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
]
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"inspector": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
]
}
}
}
6 TOOLS AVAILABLE
OUR ASSESSMENT
- 9,647 GitHub stars and dual MIT/Apache-2.0 licence (transitioning fully to Apache-2.0).
- 32 commits on main in the last 30 days.
- Official Model Context Protocol project maintenance.
- Visual web UI plus CLI mode.
- Supports stdio, streamable-http, and SSE transports.
- Live notification stream for debugging async tool flows.
- Inspector is a developer utility distinct from a runtime MCP server that exposes domain tools.
- Web UI requires a browser; headless CI use cases run the CLI mode.
- Licence transition documented in the LICENSE file: existing contributions remain MIT until contributors grant relicensing consent.
Inspector connects to any MCP server the operator points it at. Treat the Inspector session as having the same access as the server it connects to. For production debugging, run Inspector against a dedicated test instance or behind a network boundary.
MCP server developers debugging tool surfaces, transport behaviour, or notification flows; teams running CI checks against MCP server responses; operators validating an MCP integration before connecting it to a production agent.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
ADOPTION METRICS
// Reading this9,647 stars on the modelcontextprotocol/inspector official repo. 32 commits on main in the last 30 days. Top star count in this batch.
// Reading thisPairs with Context7 and Chrome DevTools in dev-tools as official MCP developer infrastructure.
SOURCES & VERIFICATION
We don't take any single directory's word for it. Before scoring, we cross-reference 5 public MCP sources, install the server ourselves against the clients we cover, and record when we last re-verified.
The same server, 5 different lenses. We reconcile these signals into our editorial score, which is why our number sometimes diverges from a directory-aggregate star count.
| Source | Their rating | Their star count | Their downloads | Last synced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutomationSwitch This page | 4.6editorial | 9,647 | — | MAY 3, 2026 |
| PulseMCP | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| MCP.so | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Glama | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Smithery | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Official MCP Registry | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
// Counts are directory-reported; we don't adjust them. Discrepancies usually come from different snapshot times or star-caching.
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DISCUSS YOUR
MCP REQUIREMENTS.
Evaluating a server, scoping an internal deployment, or working out whether MCP is the right fit at all. Start the conversation and we will point you at the right piece of the ecosystem.