Arcade vs Smithery

Pick two tools from the same category to compare side-by-side.

	Arcade MCP runtime and authorization platform that lets agents call tools as authenticated end users.	Smithery MCP server registry and hosting platform connecting agents to a catalog of 6,000+ tools and integrations.
Category	mcp_servers	mcp_servers
Vendor type	hybrid	hybrid
Pricing	freemium	freemium
Strengths	+ User-delegated OAuth lets agents act as authenticated users across business systems + Large prebuilt catalog of 7,000+ integrations served over MCP + Open-source MIT framework and CLI for building custom MCP servers + Cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped deployment options	+ Large registry of 6,200+ MCP servers with usage counts and verified flags for discovery + Managed OAuth and encrypted credential storage remove per-server auth setup + One-command server search, install, and publishing via the open-source CLI + Hosted remote servers require no local runtime
Tradeoffs	− Usage-metered pricing with small free-tier execution quotas − Hosted control plane is proprietary; only the MCP framework and SDKs are open source	− Most listings are community-published, so server quality varies − Registry and hosting platform are proprietary; only the CLI and tooling are open source
Used in stacks	0	0