In-depth architectural comparison of the X402station and X402 Discovery MCP 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.
At a Glance & Executive Verdict
X402station
Aggregators · Local stdio
Quality: 56/100 (Good) | Auth: other
X402 Discovery MCP
Aggregators · Local stdio
Quality: 53/100 (Good) | Auth: API Key required
Verdict Summary: Choose X402station if you need specialized Aggregators tools running via a local process. Choose X402 Discovery MCP if your workspace requires Aggregators integration with local subprocess execution. Both servers can be configured concurrently in your client's mcpServers manifest.
Which MCP Server Should You Choose?
Choose X402station when:
You need dedicated capabilities in the Aggregators domain.
You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
Your security boundary fits: other (Freemium).
You have access to required keys: AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY, X402STATION_BASE_URL.
Preflight by x402station.io — infrastructure for x402 agentic commerce. Six capability directions (Discover/Evaluate/Pay/Monitor/Recover/Analyze). Agents call it before every PAYMENT-SIGNATURE to detect decoys, zombie endpoints, dead services, and price traps. Tools: preflight ($0.001), forensics ($0.001), catalogdecoys ($0.005), alternatives ($0.005), whatsnew ($0.001), buycredits ($0.50 = 1000 prepaid), watchsubscribe ($0.01) + free creditsstatus/watchstatus/watchunsubscribe. Plus free anonymous preflight-trial for self-test. Probes 50k endpoints on agentic.market every 10 min. Open dataset: huggingface.co/datasets/x402station/preflight-dataset-v01. npx -y x402station-mcp.
Runtime discovery layer for x402-payable APIs. Agents discover and route to pay-per-call x402 endpoints by capability, get quality-ranked results with trust scores (0-100), and pay per query via x402. Includes MCP server, Python SDK, and CLI (npm install -g x402scout).
Tools & Capabilities Breakdown
X402station Tools (10)
preflight
Preflight x402 scam check: endpoint risk before you pay — decoy / zombie / price-trap / never-paid? Trust verdict in ~200ms before PAYMENT-SIGNATURE.
forensics
Forensic x402 scam/risk report for a suspicious endpoint: probe history, signatures, decoy / price-trap patterns.
catalog_decoys
Searchable catalog of x402 endpoint risk signals; scam-like decoys, zombies, and price-traps flagged.
buy_credits
Prepaid credit pack for high-frequency x402 scam checks, preflight, and verified calls. Returns { creditId, balance, expiresAt }; use X-Credit-Id on subsequent preflight calls.
credits_status
Free, no payment required. Returns { creditId, balance, initialBalance, used, paidAmount, createdAt, expiresAt, expired, paymentTx, paymentNetwork }. UUID-only access — anyone holding the creditId can read state, same as decrement. 404 covers both 'malformed UUID' and 'no such credit' (same body so an attacker scraping random UUIDs can't tell them apart).
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).
X402station is categorized under Aggregators and uses a local stdio subprocess. In contrast, X402 Discovery MCP belongs to Aggregators using local stdio subprocess. Select X402station when you need capabilities focused on aggregators and X402 Discovery MCP when you require tools for aggregators.
Polling-friendly catalog diff. Body { since?, limit? } (default since=now-24h, limit=200, max 500). Returns added_endpoints[] (first_seen_at >= since AND is_active=true), removed_endpoints[] (flipped to is_active=false since), service-level counts, polls_in_window, and current active totals. Cheap ($0.001 USDC) so hourly polling stays under $1/month — perfect for aggregator agents that need a fresh delta without re-pulling the whole catalog. Internal ingest cron runs every 5 min, so polling more often than that returns identical data.
alternatives
Avoid paying unsafe x402 endpoints: ranked safe alternatives for the same capability.
watch_subscribe
Monitor x402 endpoint risk; webhook on scam-like decoy / zombie / price-trap status changes. Returns watchId + secret; x402station.io posts HMAC-SHA256-signed JSON when subscribed signals fire or clear.
watch_status
Returns the current state of a watch: active/expired, alerts remaining (out of 100 prepaid), last 10 alert deliveries with their delivery_status, and the last computed signal snapshot. Free — no payment required, secret-gated. The secret is the one returned by watch_subscribe.
watch_unsubscribe
Deactivates the watch — no further alerts will be queued or delivered. The subscription is set is_active=false but the row + alert history is retained for audit. Free — no payment required, secret-gated. There is no refund for unused prepaid alerts.
X402 Discovery MCP Tools (9)
x402_discover
Semantic search across the live catalog by keyword, category, max price
x402_health
Real-time uptime + latency check for any registered service
x402_register
Register a new x402 service (HTTPS-only, rate-limited)
x402_attest
ERC-8004 trust score and reputation signals for a service
x402_scan
Full x402 compliance scan: live config, trust score, mismatch detection
scout_route
Discover best service for an intent + execute x402 payment