codanna vs filesystem

Side-by-side comparison to help you pick between these two MCP servers.

	codanna by bartolli	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol
Stars	★ 673	★ 85,748
30d uses	—	—
Score	53	77
Official	—	✓
Categories	Developer ToolsAI / LLM ToolsSearch	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity
Language	Rust	TypeScript
Last commit	this month	this month

codanna · Summary

Codanna is a local code intelligence MCP server providing semantic search, relationship tracking, and document search for AI coding assistants.

filesystem · Summary

A feature-rich MCP server for filesystem operations with dynamic directory access control.

codanna · Use cases

Finding functions and their relationships across large codebases
Semantic search for implementation logic rather than just keywords
Impact analysis of code changes with full dependency tracking

filesystem · Use cases

Enable AI models to read and write project files during development
Allow Claude or other MCP clients to browse and analyze codebases
Provide secure sandboxed access to specific directories for content generation

codanna · Install

Installation

macOS, Linux, WSL

curl -fsSL --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://install.codanna.sh | sh

Homebrew

brew install codanna

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bartolli/codanna/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

Setup for Claude Desktop

Add to Claude Desktop configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "codanna": {
      "command": "codanna",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Initialize and Index

codanna init
codanna index src

filesystem · Install

Installation

Using NPX

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "/path/to/allowed/directory"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Using Docker

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "--mount", "type=bind,src=/path/to/allowed/dir,dst=/projects/allowed/dir",
        "mcp/filesystem",
        "/projects"
      ]
    }
  }
}

VS Code Extension

Click the installation buttons in the README to install directly in VS Code.

Comparison generated from public README + GitHub signals. Last updated automatically.