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Best MCP servers for research (2026)

These are the 30 most popular open-source MCP servers for research, ranked by GitHub stars. Each one links to a page with repository details, install configs where available, and related servers.

  1. Git (official) Official – Tools to read, search, and manipulate Git repositories.
  2. gpt-researcher ★30100 – An autonomous agent that conducts deep research on any data using any LLM providers
  3. Auto-claude-code-research-in-sleep ★17502 – ARIS ⚔️ (Auto-Research-In-Sleep) — Lightweight Markdown-only skills for autonomous ML research: cross-model review loops
  4. hexstrike-ai ★12794 – HexStrike AI MCP Agents is an advanced MCP server that lets AI agents (Claude, GPT, Copilot, etc.) autonomously run 150+
  5. apify-mcp-server ★11279 – The Apify MCP server enables your AI agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, o
  6. firecrawl-mcp-server ★7607 – 🔥 Official Firecrawl MCP Server - Adds powerful web scraping and search to Cursor, Claude and any other LLM clients.
  7. semble ★6209 – Fast and Accurate Code Search for Agents. Uses 99% fewer tokens than grep+read
  8. draw.io MCP ★5642 – Official draw.io MCP server by JGraph: render draw.io XML or Mermaid diagrams inline in chat and search 10,000+ shapes.
  9. open-seo-mcp-skills ★5546 – Free SEO MCP server + open-source SEO and GEO skills for Claude: keyword research, rank tracking, audits, backlinks, AI
  10. wigolo ★5476 – The go-to web for your AI coding agent — local-first search, fetch, crawl & research over MCP. No API keys, no cloud, $0
  11. zotero-mcp ★5398 – Zotero MCP: Connects your Zotero research library with Claude and other AI assistants via the Model Context Protocol to
  12. code-graph-rag ★5258 – The ultimate RAG for your monorepo. Query, understand, and edit multi-language codebases with the power of AI and knowle
  13. exa-mcp-server ★5131 – Exa MCP for web search and web crawling!
  14. google-ads-meta-ads-mcp ★4902 – Google Ads MCP server + Meta Ads MCP (Facebook Ads MCP) + Google Analytics MCP (GA4) + Search Console in one hosted remo
  15. deep-research ★4694 – Use any LLMs (Large Language Models) for Deep Research. Support SSE API and MCP server.
  16. hyperresearch ★3856 – Convert Claude Code or Codex into the most intelligent Deep Research Agent. Collect, search, and synthesize web research
  17. pipeshub-ai ★3833 – The open-source context layer for AI agents. PipesHub turns your company's knowledge (Slack, Drive, Jira, GitHub, Micros
  18. google_workspace_mcp ★3339 – Control Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, Forms, Tasks, Search & Drive with AI - Comprehensive Google
  19. arxiv-mcp-server ★3218 – A local MCP server for agent literature work. Original-LaTeX section reads, BibTeX from arXiv metadata, and topic watche
  20. ddgs ★3018 – A metasearch library that aggregates results from diverse web search services
  21. paper-search-mcp ★2830 – MCP, CLI, Skills for searching and downloading academic papers from multiple sources like arXiv, PubMed, bioRxiv, etc.
  22. invisible_playwright_mcp ★2750 – Playwright MCP server undetected by anti-bots and captchas: AI agent browses the web on anti-detect stealth Firefox, Pyt
  23. korean-law-mcp ★2710 – 법제처 국가법령정보를 LLM에서 바로 조회하는 MCP 서버. 법령·판례·조례 검색과 인용 검증 | MCP server for Korean law — search statutes, precedents, and ordi
  24. x64dbg-mcp-server ★2506 – x64dbg-MCP Server is a native MCP (Model Context Protocol) plugin for x64dbg that exposes the debugger's full functional
  25. Tavily MCP ★2431 – Official Tavily MCP server: real-time web search, extract, map and crawl. Remote server with OAuth or API-key authentica
  26. paperbanana ★2401 – Open source implementation and extension of Google Research’s PaperBanana for automated academic figures, diagrams, and
  27. 12306-mcp ★2381 – This is a 12306 ticket search server based on the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
  28. jshookmcp ★2045 – A search-first, profile-aware reverse-engineering workspace for AI agents — 735 tools across 36 domains in one MCP serve
  29. mcp-memory-service ★2016 – Open-source persistent memory for AI agent pipelines (LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen) and Claude. REST API + knowledge graph
  30. contextplus ★1983 – Semantic Intelligence for Large-Scale Engineering. Context+ is an MCP server designed for developers who demand 99% accu

Frequently asked questions

What is an MCP server for research?

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server connects AI assistants such as Claude, Cursor or GitHub Copilot in VS Code to external tools and data. The servers on this page are focused on research.

How is this list ranked?

By GitHub stars and recent activity, using public repository data refreshed on October 15, 2026.

How do I install one?

Most servers are added to your client’s MCP config file as an npx, uvx or Docker command. Our install guides for Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code walk through it step by step.

Related guides

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