The Best Glama Alternative for Developers in 2026
Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace — a ChatGPT-like chat experience with native MCP support, access to 5,000+ MCP servers, custom agents with custom prompts, and a credit-based subscription model used by 50,000+ businesses. If what you actually need is a free, safety-first way to evaluate and equip AI agent skills, SkillzBench (skillzbench.com) is the alternative worth watching: a free directory of agent skills with security scanning, version pinning, sandbox benchmarking, and a free MCP connector, currently in pre-launch with a live waitlist. Developers who want a full team AI workspace should stick with Glama; developers who want verified, benchmarked agent skills at zero cost should get on the SkillzBench waitlist.
TL;DR
- Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace with a ChatGPT-like chat experience, native MCP support, and access to 5,000+ MCP servers.
- Glama reports being trusted by 50,000+ businesses and runs on a monthly-credit subscription model.
- SkillzBench is entirely free — the skills directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, and alerts all cost nothing.
- Published research found roughly 26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability, which is the core problem SkillzBench's verification and benchmarking pillars address.
- SkillzBench pins every skill version to a commit SHA, runs license checks and security scans, and publishes benchmark Lift in percentage points.
- Glama hosts on Fly.io with SOC 2 Type II certification and stores all customer data in the United States.
- SkillzBench is pre-launch: the waitlist and newsletter are live, but the product itself is not yet public.
Head to head
| Dimension | Glama | SkillzBench |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | — | Free — everything on the platform costs nothing 🏆 |
| Ease of use | ChatGPT-like chat interface familiar to most users 🏆 | Toggle-based per-agent loadouts; simple skill selection per agent |
| Features | Chat, native MCP with 5,000+ servers, custom agents, public MCP registries | Skill directory, security scanning, commit-SHA version pinning, sandbox benchmarking with Lift, free MCP server, change tracking |
| Security & trust | US-only data storage, SOC 2 Type II hosting (Fly.io), encryption, penetration testing | Security scans, license checks, 0-100 trust scores; addresses the ~26% of skills found to carry vulnerabilities |
| Support | Live chat, email, forum/community, FAQ/knowledge base, video tutorials/webinars 🏆 | Waitlist and newsletter live during pre-launch |
| Integrations | OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google APIs plus self-hosted models; 5,000+ MCP servers 🏆 | Free MCP server connecting any agent; skills for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and chat-app agents |
| Setup | Sign up with email or Google and start chatting; create agents with custom prompts 🏆 | Join the waitlist; once live, toggle skills per agent via the free MCP server |
The contenders
Glama, operated by Glama LLC (a Wyoming-based company), positions itself as an all-in-one AI workspace for teams. Its signup page describes a ChatGPT-like chat experience for talking with AI, native MCP support with access to more than 5,000 MCP servers, and the ability to create specialized agents with custom prompts. The company reports being trusted by 50,000+ businesses. Under the hood, Glama's terms of service state that it leverages APIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, plus its own self-hosted models. The service runs on a monthly-credit system in which paid subscribers receive account credits equal to their subscription cost each month, with the option to top up additional balance. On the infrastructure side, all customer data is stored on servers located exclusively within the United States, hosted on Fly.io, which maintains SOC 2 Type II certification; Glama also cites encryption in transit and at rest, regular security audits and penetration testing, and secure backups. Glama also operates public registries of MCP servers and MCP connectors, making it a notable hub in the MCP ecosystem for developers building agent-based workflows.
pricing See pricing
- + Native MCP support with access to 5,000+ servers — one of the broadest MCP catalogs available
- + ChatGPT-like interface that requires little retraining for teams already familiar with chat AI
- + Multi-provider model access spanning OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and self-hosted models
- + Strong infrastructure posture: US-only data storage, SOC 2 Type II hosting, encryption, and regular penetration testing
- + Public MCP Server and Connector registries that benefit the wider developer ecosystem
- + Reports trust from 50,000+ businesses
- − Credit-based billing means usage costs vary month to month and can be hard to predict
- − Some features are explicitly experimental and may be modified, suspended, or discontinued at Glama's discretion
- − Terms allow termination without refund for policy violations, at Glama's sole discretion
- − It is a general-purpose workspace, not a tool for verifying the safety or quality of individual agent skills
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. Agent skills — SKILL.md instruction packages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and chat-app agents — have proliferated, but published research found that roughly 26% of them carry at least one vulnerability, and there has been no reliable way to tell which ones actually help. SkillzBench is built 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 where users toggle skills and tools per agent, so the agent only sees what was chosen), and Stay current (tracking upstream changes, re-scanning, re-benchmarking, and notifying). It publishes a 0-100 trust score built from security, quality, license, maintenance, and community signals, with Lift always shown separately — and money never touches scores. Everything on the platform is free; revenue comes from advertising around blog articles, which never influences scores or listings. The product is currently pre-launch and actively being built, with the waitlist and newsletter live.
pricing 0
- + 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
- + Version pinning to commit SHAs gives reproducible, auditable skill installs
- + Benchmark Lift is measured independently and always shown separately from ratings
- + Money never touches scores — ad-funded model with no paid placement
- + Per-agent loadouts give fine-grained control over what each agent can see
- − Pre-launch: the product is not yet publicly available; only the waitlist and newsletter are live
- − Focused specifically on agent skills — it is not a general AI workspace or chat product
- − No track record of published benchmark results yet, since the platform is still being built
Verdict
Winner: none
These two products solve different problems: Glama is a paid all-in-one AI workspace with deep MCP server access, while SkillzBench is a free, pre-launch platform for discovering, verifying, and benchmarking agent skills. There is no outright winner — the right pick depends on whether you need a workspace or a skills trust layer.
| Option | Overall | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Glama | 7.5 | : 6: 8: 9: 8: 7 |
| SkillzBench | 7 | : 10: 7: 8: 9: 5 |
Pricing compared
Security and trust: two different layers
Who Glama is for — and why developers switch to a skills-first approach
Which should you pick?
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FAQ
What is Glama?
Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace from Glama LLC. It offers a ChatGPT-like chat experience, native MCP support with access to more than 5,000 MCP servers, and the ability to create specialized agents with custom prompts. It leverages APIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google alongside its own self-hosted models, runs on a monthly-credit subscription system, and reports being trusted by 50,000+ businesses. All customer data is stored on US servers hosted on SOC 2 Type II-certified Fly.io infrastructure.
Is SkillzBench really free?
Yes. Everything on SkillzBench is free: the agent skills directory, the MCP connector, the benchmarks, and the change-tracking alerts. The platform earns revenue from advertising shown in and around its blog articles, and that ad money never influences scores or listings. Trust scores (0-100) and benchmark Lift are always published separately from any commercial considerations.
Why do agent skills need security vetting?
Agent skills are SKILL.md instruction packages for tools like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and chat-app agents, and they have spread quickly with little quality control. Published research found that approximately 26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability. Since skills directly instruct agents — which may have access to your files, tools, and APIs — installing an unvetted skill can introduce real risk. SkillzBench addresses this with commit-SHA version pinning, validation, license checks, security scans, and sandbox benchmarking.
Can I use Glama and SkillzBench together?
They solve complementary problems. Glama is a workspace where you chat with AI, run custom agents, and connect to 5,000+ MCP servers. SkillzBench is a trust layer for agent skills: it verifies, benchmarks, and equips skills through a free MCP server with per-agent loadouts. A developer could use SkillzBench to decide which skills are safe and effective, then connect them to agents in whichever workspace they use.
Is SkillzBench available now?
SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built. The waitlist and newsletter are live, so you can sign up now to be notified when the platform opens. The benchmarking, scanning, and MCP connector are what SkillzBench is building and will offer — the product itself is not yet publicly available.
Which should a small business choose in 2026?
It depends on the job. If you need a team AI workspace today — chat, custom agents, broad MCP server access, and enterprise-style data controls — Glama is the established option, with a credit-based subscription and 50,000+ reported business users. If your goal is safely adopting agent skills at zero cost, SkillzBench's free verification, benchmarking, and MCP connector are purpose-built for that; join the waitlist while it is in pre-launch.