mcp-debug vs filesystem

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

	mcp-debug by giantswarm	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol
Stars	★ 37	★ 85,748
30d uses	—	—
Score	46	77
Official	—	✓
Categories	Developer ToolsAI / LLM ToolsSecurity	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity
Language	Go	TypeScript
Last commit	this month	this month

mcp-debug · Summary

A command-line tool for debugging MCP servers with OAuth 2.1 authentication, interactive REPL, and server mode.

filesystem · Summary

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

mcp-debug · Use cases

Debugging tool integrations in MCP servers by inspecting capabilities and testing tool calls
Testing MCP server notifications and responses with detailed JSON-RPC logging
Authenticating to OAuth-protected MCP servers with automatic discovery and PKCE validation

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

mcp-debug · Install

Installation

From Source

go install github.com/giantswarm/mcp-debug@latest

Usage

# Connect to an MCP server
./mcp-debug --endpoint http://localhost:8090/mcp

# Start interactive REPL
./mcp-debug --repl

# Run as MCP server
./mcp-debug --mcp-server

# OAuth authentication
./mcp-debug --oauth --endpoint https://mcp.example.com/mcp

Claude Desktop Integration

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-debug": {
      "command": "mcp-debug",
      "args": ["--mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

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.