MCP Marketplace vs Agent Harnesses

In-depth architectural comparison of the MCP Marketplace and Agent Harnesses MCP servers. Compare execution transports, security boundaries, tool capabilities, quality scores, and ready-to-paste client installation snippets for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.

Which MCP Server Should You Choose?

Choose MCP Marketplace when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Developer Tools domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).

Explore MCP Marketplace Details

Choose Agent Harnesses when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Developer Tools domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).

Explore Agent Harnesses Details

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	MCP Marketplace Developer Tools	Agent Harnesses Developer Tools
Summary	Search 25000+ MCP servers via AI. MCP SSE and A2A supported.	Agent-harness picks, search, and decision guides over a curated, weekly-rescored list of 110.
Category & Scope	Developer Tools	Developer Tools
Quality signal

Tools & Capabilities Breakdown

Ready-to-Paste Client Configurations

Paste either (or both) of these JSON server blocks into your client config file (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-marketplace": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-marketplace"
      ]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "agent-harnesses": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "agent-harnesses-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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