A side-by-side look at the Brightdata MCP and Staan MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose Brightdata MCP for search & data extraction work as a local process; choose Staan for search & data extraction as a local process. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
API_TOKEN.GROUPS, TOOLS, search_engine.STAAN_API_KEY.web_search, answer.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | S Staan | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search & Data Extraction | Search & Data Extraction |
| Quality signal | 68/100 · Great | 52/100 · Good |
| Install command | Confirmed | Confirmed |
| Transport | Local subprocess (stdio) | Local subprocess (stdio) |
| Auth | API key required | API key required |
| Pricing | Freemium | Not declared |
| Required env vars | API_TOKEN | STAAN_API_KEY |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 2,671 | 0 |
| Directory activity | 3 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 8 | 2 |
| Full listing | View Brightdata MCP | View Staan |
GROUPSTOOLSsearch_enginesearch_engine_batchscrape_as_markdownscrape_batchdiscovercustomweb_searchSearches the web through `POST /v2/search/web`. Each call returns one page of up to 10 resultsanswerAsks `POST /v2/answer` for an answer grounded in web sources (or in sources you supply). ThePaste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
{
"mcpServers": {
"luminati-io-brightdata-mcp": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brightdata/mcp"
],
"env": {
"API_TOKEN": "YOUR_API_TOKEN_HERE"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"staan": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"staan-mcp"
],
"env": {
"STAAN_API_KEY": "YOUR_STAAN_API_KEY_HERE"
}
}
}
}