The Best Glama Alternative for Verified Agent Skills in 2026
Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace with a ChatGPT-like chat experience, native MCP support for 5,000+ servers, and custom agent creation, trusted by 50,000+ businesses — but it doesn't verify or benchmark the agent skills you connect to it. SkillzBench is a free, independent alternative focused specifically on verified agent skills: it pins every skill version to a commit SHA, security-scans and license-checks it, and benchmarks each skill in a sandbox to publish its measured Lift, all at no cost.
TL;DR
- Glama is a live, all-in-one AI workspace with a ChatGPT-like chat, native MCP support for 5,000+ servers, and custom agent creation, trusted by 50,000+ businesses.
- Glama offers a free version and a free trial, but does not list public pricing tiers.
- Glama's infrastructure is hosted on Fly.io, which maintains SOC 2 Type II certification, with data stored exclusively on US servers and encryption in transit and at rest.
- SkillzBench is a free, independent directory of AI agent skills plus a free MCP tool that connects any agent to the skills you choose.
- SkillzBench pins every skill version to a commit SHA, validates, license-checks, security-scans and quality-judges each skill — a response to published research finding ~26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability.
- SkillzBench benchmarks every skill in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and publishes the Lift in percentage points; a 0-100 trust score comes from security, quality, license, maintenance and community signals.
- SkillzBench is pre-launch: the waitlist/newsletter is live, but the product itself is not yet public.
Head to head
| Dimension | Glama | SkillzBench |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free version and free trial; no published paid tiers | Everything free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, alerts 🏆 |
| Ease of use | ChatGPT-like chat interface 🏆 | Free MCP server connects any agent; per-agent loadouts |
| Features | Chat, 5,000+ MCP servers, custom agents with custom prompts | Discover, Verify, Benchmark, Equip, Stay-current pipeline plus trust scores |
| Verification & security | Platform-level: encryption, audits, SOC 2 Type II hosting (Fly.io) | Skill-level: commit-SHA pinning, security scan, license check, quality judge 🏆 |
| MCP support | Native MCP support, 5,000+ servers, public registries 🏆 | One free MCP server connecting any agent to chosen skills |
| Benchmarks | None — no skill performance testing | Sandbox benchmarks with the same model, with and without the skill; Lift published in percentage points 🏆 |
| Maturity | Live; trusted by 50,000+ businesses 🏆 | Pre-launch; waitlist live, product not yet public |
| Best fit | Teams wanting an all-in-one AI workspace now | Teams wanting verified, benchmarked agent skills for free |
The contenders
Glama, operated by Glama LLC (a Wyoming-based company), is an all-in-one AI workspace that positions itself as 'ChatGPT for teams.' It combines a ChatGPT-like chat experience for talking with AI with native MCP support providing access to 5,000+ servers, and lets users create specialized agents with custom prompts. The company says it is trusted by 50,000+ businesses. Its services leverage APIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, as well as self-hosted models. Glama also runs public registries of MCP servers and MCP connectors. On the security side, Glama encrypts data in transit and at rest, performs regular security audits and penetration testing, and stores all customer data on servers located exclusively within the United States, hosted on Fly.io, which maintains SOC 2 Type II certification. A free version and a free trial are available.
pricing See pricing
- + All-in-one workspace combining chat, MCP connectivity and custom agents in a single product
- + Native MCP support with access to 5,000+ servers — one of the broadest MCP catalogs available
- + ChatGPT-like interface that lowers the learning curve for non-technical team members
- + Strong security posture: encryption in transit and at rest, regular audits and penetration testing, SOC 2 Type II-certified hosting on Fly.io
- + Free version and free trial available for evaluating before committing
- + Established and live, trusted by 50,000+ businesses
- − No published pricing tiers — you have to sign up or contact the company to learn what paid plans cost
- − No skill-level verification: Glama connects you to MCP servers and agents but doesn't security-scan, license-check or benchmark the underlying skills
- − Some features are experimental and may be modified, suspended or discontinued at Glama's discretion
- − All customer data is stored exclusively on US servers, which may be a limitation for teams with data-residency requirements elsewhere
- − Users bear all risks associated with the use of any content, per its Terms of Service
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 — are everywhere, but nobody can tell which ones actually help and which are risky: published research found ~26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability. SkillzBench is building a five-stage pipeline: Discover (continuously crawl and dedupe skills from GitHub), Verify (pin every version to a commit SHA, validate, license-check, security-scan, quality-judge), Benchmark (test every skill in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and publish the Lift in percentage points), Equip (one free MCP server plus per-agent loadouts where the agent only sees what was chosen), and Stay current (track upstream changes, re-scan, re-benchmark, notify). A 0-100 trust score comes from security, quality, license, maintenance and community signals; Lift is always shown separately from ratings and money never touches scores. SkillzBench is pre-launch — the waitlist/newsletter is live, and the product itself is not yet public.
pricing 0
- + Everything is free — the directory, the MCP connector, benchmarks and alerts
- + Purpose-built verification: commit-SHA pinning, license checks, security scanning and quality judging for every skill version
- + Measured impact, not opinions: sandbox benchmarks with the same model, with and without the skill, publishing Lift in percentage points
- + Independence by design — Lift is shown separately from ratings and money never touches scores
- + Per-agent loadouts mean each agent only sees the skills and tools you chose for it
- + Stay-current tracking re-scans and re-benchmarks skills when upstream changes occur
- − Pre-launch — the product is not yet public, so you can't evaluate results yourself today
- − Narrower scope than Glama: it's a skills directory and MCP connector, not a full chat workspace for teams
- − Benchmark results and live skill counts are not yet published, so early claims can't be independently checked
- − Revenue comes from advertising around blog articles, which some readers may want to weigh even though ads never influence scores
Verdict
Winner: SkillzBench
For small businesses whose priority is knowing which agent skills are safe and actually effective, SkillzBench's verification-and-benchmarking focus fills a gap Glama leaves open. Glama remains the stronger pick if you want a complete chat-and-agent workspace today rather than a skills-verification layer.
| Option | Overall | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Glama | 7 | : 6: 8: 7: 6: 8 |
| SkillzBench | 8 | : 10: 8: 7: 9: 5 |
What Glama does well — and where it stops short
Why verification-first matters in 2026
How to choose between them
Which should you pick?
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FAQ
Is Glama free?
Glama offers a free version and a free trial, so you can evaluate the platform without paying. However, it does not publish its paid pricing tiers, so you'll need to sign up or check with the company directly to understand what a paid subscription costs and what monthly credits you'd receive.
What does SkillzBench cost?
Nothing. Everything on SkillzBench — the skills directory, the MCP connector, benchmarks and alerts — is free. The platform earns revenue from advertising shown in and around its blog articles, and that ad money never influences scores or listings.
Can I use Glama and SkillzBench together?
Yes, and that's a sensible setup. Glama gives you the workspace — chat, MCP connectivity and custom agents — while SkillzBench's free MCP tool connects any agent to skills that have been commit-pinned, security-scanned, license-checked and benchmarked. Use SkillzBench to decide which skills your Glama-built agents should be allowed to see.
Why does skill verification matter for a small business?
Published research found that roughly 26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability. If you're loading third-party SKILL.md packages into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Gemini CLI without checking them, you're accepting that risk blindly. SkillzBench's verification pipeline — commit-SHA pinning, security scanning, license checks and quality judging — is designed to surface that risk before it reaches your agents.
Is SkillzBench available now?
SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built. The waitlist and newsletter are live, but the product itself is not yet public, so benchmark results and live skill counts aren't yet available to inspect. Glama, by contrast, is a live product you can try today.
Which is better for a small business adopting AI in 2026?
It depends on your bottleneck. If you lack an AI workspace at all, Glama is the immediately usable option with a free version, 5,000+ MCP servers and custom agents. If your problem is trusting the skills you're installing, SkillzBench's free verification and benchmarking layer addresses a gap Glama doesn't cover — once it launches.