Smithery vs SkillzBench: Which Agent Skills Platform Should You Trust?
Smithery is a large, established MCP registry and hosting platform — now owned by Arcade.dev as of August 2026 — that connects agents to 100K+ tools and servers with managed OAuth and a free Hobby plan (up to 3 namespaces). SkillzBench is a free, independent directory of AI agent skills plus a free MCP connector, built around verifying and benchmarking skills: it pins every skill to a commit SHA, security-scans and sandbox-benchmarks each one, and publishes a Lift score — with everything free. If you need a broad marketplace of MCP servers with managed connections, Smithery is the mature choice; if your priority is knowing which skills are safe and actually effective before installing them, SkillzBench is built exactly for that.
TL;DR
- Smithery is a leading public registry and hosting platform for MCP servers, acquired by Arcade.dev on August 5, 2026.
- Smithery lists 100K+ tools and skills, with popular servers like Brave Search (106.86k uses) and Gmail (59.79k uses).
- Smithery's Hobby plan is free and allows up to 3 namespaces; Pay as you Go allows 100 and Custom allows 100+.
- SkillzBench is a free directory of agent skills plus a free MCP tool that connects any agent to the skills you choose.
- Published research found roughly 26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability — the problem SkillzBench's verification pillar targets.
- SkillzBench pins every skill to a commit SHA, runs security scans and license checks, and benchmarks each skill in a sandbox to publish a Lift score in percentage points.
- SkillzBench is pre-launch: the waitlist/newsletter is live, and the directory, benchmarks, and MCP connector are being built.
Head to head
| Dimension | Smithery | SkillzBench |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free Hobby plan (3 namespaces); Pay as you Go and Custom tiers above it | Everything free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, alerts; ad-supported 🏆 |
| Ease of use | One-click server installs; CLI handles auth and sessions | Toggle-based per-agent loadouts; agent only sees chosen skills |
| Features | Registry, hosting, namespaces, Uplink tunneling, token policies, publisher analytics | Discover, Verify, Benchmark, Equip, Stay-current pillars with trust score and Lift |
| Support | Documentation site with concepts, CLI, and build guides 🏆 | Waitlist/newsletter live; product pre-launch |
| Integrations | 100K+ tools and skills; Brave Search, Gmail, OneSignal, Context7 and more 🏆 | Free MCP server connects any agent; targets Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI |
| Setup | npm CLI install, browser auth, namespace creation | One free MCP server plus per-agent loadouts |
| Trust & safety | Token scoping and request-level tool restrictions; Arcade emphasizes security and governance | Commit-SHA pinning, security scans, license checks, 0–100 trust score, sandbox Lift benchmarks 🏆 |
The contenders
Smithery is a public registry and hosting platform for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, positioned as 'the marketplace for AI agents' with 100K+ tools and skills connectable instantly. It handles auth, credentials, and sessions for you: Smithery Connect manages OAuth flows, credential storage, token refresh, and session lifecycle, so agents connect to services like Brave Search (106.86k uses), Gmail (59.79k uses), OneSignal (22.49k uses), Exa Search, and Context7 with one click. Resources are organized into namespaces — shared workspaces holding servers, connections, and skills — with a free Hobby plan capped at 3 namespaces, Pay as you Go at 100, and Custom at 100+. Developers can publish servers via URL or MCPB bundle, get a dedicated server page with usage analytics, and use Uplink to expose local MCP servers through a secure TLS tunnel. Token policies allow scoped, time-limited credentials for agent use. On August 5, 2026, Arcade.dev acquired Smithery, with co-founder Anirudh Kamath joining the Arcade team, pairing Smithery's developer experience with Arcade's enterprise security and governance focus.
pricing 0/month
- + Enormous breadth: 100K+ tools and skills, including high-usage servers like Brave Search and Gmail
- + Auth, credentials, and sessions handled for you — a major time-saver for small teams without DevOps
- + Free Hobby plan with 3 namespaces is enough for a small business to start
- + Uplink lets you run private or local tools through the same managed surface
- + Now backed by Arcade.dev, which focuses on security, reliability, and governance for production agents
- − Not open source, and third-party trackers note limited recorded adoption signals compared with open-source alternatives
- − Third-party reviews cite setup complexity and a learning curve as reasons users explore alternatives
- − Namespace caps (3 on the free Hobby plan) can constrain multi-environment setups
- − Server quality varies — Arcade's own ToolBench benchmark notes MCP growth has outpaced quality
- − The acquisition by Arcade.dev means the product's direction is now tied to a larger company's enterprise roadmap
SkillzBench is AIQ Labs' free, independent directory of AI agent skills plus a free MCP tool that connects any agent to the skills you choose. It exists because agent skills — SKILL.md instruction packages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and chat-app agents — have proliferated with no reliable way to tell which ones help and which are risky; published research found roughly 26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability. SkillzBench is organized around five pillars: Discover (continuously crawling and deduplicating skills from GitHub), Verify (pinning every version to a commit SHA, validating, license-checking, security-scanning, and quality-judging), Benchmark (testing every skill in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and publishing the Lift in percentage points), Equip (one free MCP server plus per-agent loadouts — users toggle skills and tools per agent, and the agent only sees what was chosen), and Stay current (tracking upstream changes, re-scanning, re-benchmarking, and notifying). A 0–100 trust score combines security, quality, license, maintenance, and community signals, with Lift always shown separately and money never touching scores. Everything on the platform is free; revenue comes from advertising around blog articles, never from users.
pricing 0/month
- + Completely free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, and alerts all cost nothing
- + Directly addresses a documented risk: ~26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability
- + Sandbox benchmarking with a Lift metric shows whether a skill actually improves performance
- + Per-agent loadouts give precise control over what each agent can see and use
- + Ad-supported model means money never influences scores or listings
- − Pre-launch: the waitlist/newsletter is live but the product itself is not yet public
- − Scope is skills verification and benchmarking, not a broad marketplace of hosted MCP connections
- − No track record of published benchmark results yet, since benchmarking is still being built
- − Support and community maturity are unproven before launch
Verdict
Winner: none
These platforms solve different problems: Smithery is a distribution-and-connection marketplace for MCP servers, while SkillzBench is a verification-and-benchmarking layer for agent skills. Small businesses wanting breadth and one-click connections lean Smithery; those wanting safety vetting and measured performance lift lean SkillzBench.
| Option | Overall | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Smithery | 7.5 | : 8: 8: 8: 6: 9: 7 |
| SkillzBench | 7 | : 10: 7: 7: 5: 6: 7 |
Pricing compared
Trust and safety: the core difference
Breadth and integrations
Maturity and direction
Which should you pick?
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FAQ
Is Smithery free to use?
Yes, Smithery has a free Hobby plan, confirmed in its own documentation, with a cap of 3 namespaces. Above that, a Pay as you Go plan allows up to 100 namespaces and a Custom plan allows 100+. The free tier covers most small-business experimentation: you can search the registry, connect to servers like Brave Search or Gmail, and use the CLI with managed OAuth without paying.
What does SkillzBench cost?
Nothing. SkillzBench is entirely free: the skills directory, the MCP connector, sandbox benchmarks, and change alerts all cost nothing. The platform earns revenue from advertising shown in and around its blog articles, and that ad money never influences trust scores or listings — scores come from security, quality, license, maintenance, and community signals, with the Lift benchmark always shown separately.
Can I use Smithery and SkillzBench together?
They're complementary rather than competing in practice. Smithery is a marketplace and hosting layer for MCP servers with managed connections, while SkillzBench is a verification and benchmarking layer for agent skills with a free MCP connector. A small business could use SkillzBench's trust scores and Lift benchmarks to decide which skills are safe and effective, then use Smithery when it needs broad hosted server connections with handled auth.
Who owns Smithery now?
Arcade.dev acquired Smithery, announced August 5, 2026. Smithery co-founder Anirudh Kamath joined the Arcade team. Arcade positions the deal as combining Smithery's developer experience — one click to find and run an MCP server — with Arcade's focus on security, reliability, and governance for enterprises running production agents.
Why does skill verification matter for agent skills?
Agent skills are SKILL.md instruction packages that agents like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini CLI follow, and published research found that roughly 26% of them carry at least one vulnerability. Because skills instruct agent behavior, a malicious or poorly built one can misdirect an agent that has access to your tools and data. Verification — pinning versions to commit SHAs, security scanning, license checks, and sandbox benchmarking — is how you know a skill is safe and actually improves performance before installing it.
Is SkillzBench available now?
SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built. The waitlist and newsletter are live, but the product itself — the directory, benchmarking, security scanning, and the free MCP connector — is not yet public. It's being developed as a free platform serving business owners adopting AI, developers, prompt engineers, and agent builders.