Gearboy vs filesystem

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

	Gearboy by drhelius	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol
Stars	★ 1,130	★ 85,748
30d uses	—	—
Score	53	77
Official	—	✓
Categories	MediaDeveloper ToolsAI / LLM Tools	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity
Language	C++	TypeScript
Last commit	this month	this month

Gearboy · Summary

Game Boy emulator with embedded MCP server for AI-assisted debugging and ROM analysis.

filesystem · Summary

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

Gearboy · Use cases

AI-assisted debugging of Game Boy games using memory inspection and breakpoint tools
ROM reverse engineering with AI through disassembly and code tracing features
Game cheat creation and ROM modification using memory search and analysis capabilities

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

Gearboy · Install

Installation

Gearboy can be downloaded as pre-built binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux from the [releases page](https://github.com/drhelius/Gearboy/releases).

To use the MCP server:

Start Gearboy with one of these options:

- --mcp-stdio - Auto-start MCP server with stdio transport - --mcp-http - Auto-start MCP server with HTTP transport - --mcp-http-port N - Specify HTTP port (default: 7777)

For Claude Desktop integration, add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gearboy": {
      "command": "path/to/gearboy",
      "args": ["--mcp-stdio"]
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, the --headless option can be used to run without GUI when using MCP.

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.