The Best Glama Alternative for Verified Agent Skills in 2026
For verified agent skills specifically, SkillzBench is the stronger fit: it is a free, independent directory that pins every skill to a commit SHA, security-scans it, and benchmarks it in a sandbox so you can see the Lift in percentage points before you deploy — important because published research found roughly 26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability. Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace with native MCP support and access to 5,000+ MCP servers, trusted by 50,000+ businesses, but it is a broad team chat platform rather than a skills-verification layer. If you want a ChatGPT-like team workspace with an MCP registry, Glama; if you want to know which agent skills are safe and actually help, SkillzBench.
TL;DR
- SkillzBench is a free, independent directory of AI 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 core problem SkillzBench is built to solve.
- SkillzBench pins every skill version to a commit SHA, validates it, license-checks it, security-scans it, and quality-judges it.
- Every skill is benchmarked in a sandbox with the same model, with and without the skill, and the Lift in percentage points is published separately from ratings.
- Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace with a ChatGPT-like chat experience, native MCP support, access to 5,000+ MCP servers, and custom agents — trusted by 50,000+ businesses.
- Glama runs on a monthly-credits model: your subscription cost is deposited to your account as credits each month, with topped-up balances available for overages.
- SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built; the waitlist and newsletter are live, and everything on the platform will be free, funded by blog advertising that never touches scores.
Head to head
| Dimension | Glama | SkillzBench |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free version and free trial available; paid plans use a monthly-credits model | Free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, and alerts all free 🏆 |
| Core focus | All-in-one AI workspace: chat, agents, MCP registry | Agent skills: discovery, verification, benchmarking, MCP equipping |
| Skill verification | Public MCP registries without published security scanning or license checks | Commit-SHA pinning, validation, license checks, security scans, quality judging, 0-100 trust score 🏆 |
| Benchmarking | No published skill benchmarking | Sandbox tests with the same model, with and without the skill; publishes Lift in percentage points 🏆 |
| MCP support | Native MCP support with access to 5,000+ servers, plus public Server and Connector registries 🏆 | One free MCP server with per-agent loadouts; agent only sees what you toggled on |
| Security posture | US-only data storage, SOC 2 Type II hosting (Fly.io), encryption in transit and at rest, audits and penetration testing | Security scanning and license checks on every skill; trust score includes security signals |
| Maturity | Live product trusted by 50,000+ businesses per its signup page 🏆 | Pre-launch and actively being built; waitlist and newsletter live |
| Transparency of quality | Experimental features may be modified or discontinued at the company's discretion | Trust score methodology published; Lift separate from ratings; money never touches scores 🏆 |
The contenders
Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace from Glama LLC, a Wyoming-based company, positioned as a 'ChatGPT for teams'. It offers 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 states it is trusted by 50,000+ businesses. Under the hood it leverages APIs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google alongside its own self-hosted models. Glama also operates public directories — the MCP Server Registry and the MCP Connector Registry — where users and developers can discover and submit MCP integrations. On the infrastructure side, all customer data is stored on servers located exclusively in the United States, hosted on Fly.io, which maintains SOC 2 Type II certification, with encryption in transit and at rest, regular security audits, penetration testing, and secure backups. Paid accounts work on a monthly-credits system: the monetary value of your subscription is deposited to your account each month and can be spent on services within the platform, with topped-up balances available beyond that. Some features are explicitly experimental and may be modified, suspended, or discontinued at the company's discretion.
pricing free trial
- + All-in-one workspace: chat, agents, and MCP connectivity in a single product
- + Native MCP support with access to 5,000+ servers
- + Trusted by 50,000+ businesses, per the company's own signup page
- + Strong stated security posture: US-only data storage, SOC 2 Type II hosting, encryption, audits and penetration testing
- + Flexible credits model with topped-up balances that persist until consumed
- + Free version and free trial available
- − Experimental features may be modified, suspended, or discontinued at Glama's discretion
- − No published security scanning, license checking, or sandbox benchmarking of the skills and MCP servers in its registry
- − Policy allows account suspension or termination without refund for policy violations at the company's sole discretion
- − Credits-based billing means costs vary with usage, which complicates budgeting for small teams
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 quality gate: 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, so 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 is built from security, quality, license, maintenance, and community signals; Lift is always shown separately from ratings, and money never touches scores. Everything on the platform is free — the directory, the MCP connector, benchmarks, and alerts — funded by advertising in and around blog articles that never influences scores or listings. The product is pre-launch and actively being built; the waitlist and newsletter are live.
pricing 0
- + Completely free — directory, MCP connector, benchmarks, and alerts, with no paid tiers
- + Directly addresses a documented risk: ~26% of agent skills carry at least one vulnerability
- + Commit-SHA pinning and security scanning give a verifiable chain of custody for every skill version
- + Sandbox benchmarking shows the Lift in percentage points, so value is measured, not claimed
- + Per-agent loadouts limit what each agent can see, reducing blast radius
- + Independent funding model: ad-supported blog, with ad money never influencing scores or listings
- − Pre-launch and actively being built — the product is not yet public; the waitlist and newsletter are live
- − Focused scope: skills discovery, verification, benchmarking, and MCP connectivity — not a full team chat workspace
- − No live skill counts or published benchmark results to point to yet
Verdict
Winner: SkillzBench
For the specific job of finding and verifying agent skills, SkillzBench wins on fit and cost — verification, sandbox benchmarking, and the MCP connector are all free. Glama remains a capable all-in-one AI workspace with a large MCP registry, but it does not verify or benchmark the skills you attach.
| Option | Overall | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| SkillzBench | 8.5 | : 10: 9: 9: 5: 7 |
| Glama | 7.5 | : 6: 9: 4: 8: 6 |
Pricing compared
Verification and trust: why it matters in 2026
Who Glama is still right for
Which should you pick?
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FAQ
What is the main difference between Glama and SkillzBench?
Glama is an all-in-one AI workspace — a ChatGPT-like chat experience with native MCP support, access to 5,000+ MCP servers, and custom agents — while SkillzBench is a free, independent directory of AI agent skills with verification and benchmarking built in. Glama helps your team use AI; SkillzBench tells you which agent skills are safe and actually help before you attach them to any agent.
Why does skill verification matter so much in 2026?
Agent skills (SKILL.md instruction packages for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, and chat-app agents) have spread with no quality gate, and published research found that roughly 26% of skills carry at least one vulnerability. Without verification, you're installing unvetted instructions into agents that act on your business data. SkillzBench addresses this by pinning every skill version to a commit SHA, security-scanning and license-checking it, and benchmarking it in a sandbox to measure its actual Lift.
How does Glama's credits-based pricing work?
Glama deposits the monetary value of your subscription to your account each month as Monthly Credits, which you can spend on services within the platform during the month of issuance. If you need more, you can add a Topped-up Balance, which remains available until consumed or expires according to the platform's terms. A free version and a free trial are also available.
Is SkillzBench really free?
Yes — everything on SkillzBench is free: the skills directory, the MCP connector, the benchmarks, and the change 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 come from security, quality, license, maintenance, and community signals, and the Lift metric is always shown separately from ratings.
Can I use Glama and SkillzBench together?
Yes, and for many small businesses that's the practical answer in 2026. SkillzBench's free MCP tool connects any agent to the skills you choose, so it can serve as the verification and equipping layer regardless of which workspace or coding agent you use. You get Glama's broad workspace and registry access, plus SkillzBench's security scanning, commit-SHA pinning, and sandbox benchmarking on the skills you actually install.
What is SkillzBench's launch status?
SkillzBench is pre-launch and actively being built. The waitlist and newsletter are live, so you can sign up to be notified, but the product itself is not yet public. The five pillars — Discover, Verify, Benchmark, Equip, and Stay current — describe what the platform is building and will offer: continuous crawling and deduplication of skills from GitHub, commit-SHA-pinned verification, sandbox benchmarking with published Lift, a free MCP server with per-agent loadouts, and upstream change tracking with re-scans and notifications.