MCP servers, actually started
We start every server on a clean machine, run initialize and tools/list over stdio, and write down what came back: whether it boots, how many tools it exposes, and the Context Tax — the size of that tools/list payload in tokens, estimated at 4 characters per token. Servers that refuse to boot get a page too. The failure is the finding.
Files
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | community (negokaz) | BOOTS ✓ · 6 tools · ~1,406 tokens |
| Filesystem · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 14 tools · ~3,243 tokens |
| Google Drive (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
Memory
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Memory · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 9 tools · ~2,688 tokens |
Dev Tools
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| CircleCI | CircleCI | BOOTS ✓ · 13 tools · ~12,932 tokens |
| Everything (test server) · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 13 tools · ~1,913 tokens |
| Git · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 12 tools · ~1,477 tokens |
| GitHub (archived npm server) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✓ · 26 tools · ~3,964 tokens |
| GitLab (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
Reasoning
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Sequential Thinking · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~1,147 tokens |
Web
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Apify Actors | Apify | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
| Fetch · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~276 tokens |
| Firecrawl | Firecrawl | BOOTS ✓ · 25 tools · ~9,077 tokens |
Utilities
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Time · official | Anthropic (reference) | BOOTS ✓ · 2 tools · ~300 tokens |
Communication
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Slack (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
Databases
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Chroma | Chroma | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Elasticsearch | Elastic | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| MongoDB | MongoDB | BOOTS ✓ · 31 tools · ~9,462 tokens |
| MySQL | community (benborla29) | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~100 tokens |
| Pinecone | Pinecone | BOOTS ✓ · 9 tools · ~6,165 tokens |
| PostgreSQL (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~33 tokens |
| Qdrant | Qdrant | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Supabase | Supabase | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
Browsers
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Browserbase | Browserbase | BOOTS ✓ · 6 tools · ~393 tokens |
| Playwright MCP | Microsoft | BOOTS ✓ · 24 tools · ~4,626 tokens |
| Puppeteer (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✓ · 7 tools · ~612 tokens |
APIs
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Google Maps (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
| YouTube Transcript | community | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~84 tokens |
Search
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Brave Search (archived) · archived | Anthropic (archived) | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
| DuckDuckGo Search | community | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Exa | Exa Labs | BOOTS ✓ · 2 tools · ~534 tokens |
| Tavily | Tavily | BOOTS ✓ · 5 tools · ~1,924 tokens |
Docs
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Context7 | Upstash | BOOTS ✓ · 2 tools · ~1,215 tokens |
| should-i-use (ours) | MrKeyoor | BOOTS ✓ · 6 tools · ~666 tokens |
Productivity
Observability
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Sentry | Sentry | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens · needs env |
Payments
Commerce
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify Dev | Shopify | BOOTS ✓ · 5 tools · ~6,590 tokens |
Cloud
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Azure MCP | Microsoft | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Heroku | Heroku | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Kubernetes | community (Flux159) | BOOTS ✓ · 23 tools · ~5,964 tokens |
| Netlify | Netlify | BOOTS ✓ · 9 tools · ~3,083 tokens |
Code Execution
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop Commander | community | BOOTS ✓ · 26 tools · ~15,226 tokens |
| E2B Code Sandbox | E2B | BOOTS ✓ · 1 tools · ~72 tokens |
UI
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Magic (21st.dev) | 21st.dev | BOOTS ✓ · 0 tools · ~1 tokens |
Creative
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| Blender | community | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
| Figma (Framelink) | community | BOOTS ✗ · 0 tools · ~0 tokens |
Automation
| Server | Vendor | Measured |
|---|---|---|
| n8n | community (czlonkowski) | BOOTS ✓ · 7 tools · ~2,942 tokens |