VMware VKS vs VMware Monitor

In-depth architectural comparison of the VMware VKS and VMware Monitor 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 VMware VKS when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Cloud Platforms domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: other (Free / Open Source).
• You have access to required keys: VMWARE_VKS_VCENTER01_PASSWORD.
• Primary tools included: check_vks_compatibility, get_supervisor_status, list_supervisor_storage_policies.

Explore VMware VKS Details

Choose VMware Monitor when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Cloud Platforms domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: API Key required (Free / Open Source).
• You have access to required keys: VCENTER_SERVER, VCENTER_USERNAME, VCENTER_PASSWORD.
• Primary tools included: 31 read-only monitoring tools with zero destructive code paths, Aggregated, correlated reports for clusters, hosts, VMs, and datastores, Self-contained offline HTML snapshot generation with drill-down details.

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	VMware VKS zw008 Cloud Platforms	VMware Monitor zw008 Cloud Platforms
Summary	VMware Tanzu / vSphere Kubernetes Service — Supervisor cluster, Namespace, and TKC (Tanzu Kubernetes Cluster) lifecycle management. 20 tools with dry-run mode, kubeconfig export, and double-confirmation for namespace/TKC deletion.	Read-only VMware vSphere/vCenter monitoring — inventory, alarms, events, host health, VM info, and snapshot listing. 8 strictly read-only tools with code-level zero-destructive guarantee (validated by test fixtures).
Category & Scope

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": {
    "zw008-vmware-vks": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from"
      ],
      "env": {
        "VMWARE_VKS_VCENTER01_PASSWORD": "YOUR_VMWARE_VKS_VCENTER01_PASSWORD_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zw008-vmware-monitor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "skills"
      ],
      "env": {
        "VCENTER_SERVER": "YOUR_VCENTER_SERVER_HERE",
        "VCENTER_USERNAME": "YOUR_VCENTER_USERNAME_HERE",
        "VCENTER_PASSWORD": "YOUR_VCENTER_PASSWORD_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

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