zotero-mcp vs filesystem

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

	zotero-mcp by kujenga	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol
Stars	★ 150	★ 85,748
30d uses	—	—
Score	42	77
Official	—	✓
Categories	ProductivityAI / LLM ToolsKnowledge Graph	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity
Language	Python	TypeScript
Last commit	12 mo ago	this month

zotero-mcp · Summary

Python MCP server for Zotero library integration with AI assistants

filesystem · Summary

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

zotero-mcp · Use cases

AI research assistants searching and retrieving academic papers from Zotero libraries
Content creators summarizing and analyzing collections of PDF documents
Researchers organizing and referencing their Zotero collections in AI conversations

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

zotero-mcp · Install

Installation

**Using uvx with Local Zotero API:**

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--upgrade", "zotero-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "ZOTERO_LOCAL": "true",
        "ZOTERO_API_KEY": "",
        "ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID": ""
      }
    }
  }
}

**Using Docker with Zotero Web API:**

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zotero": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--rm",
        "-i",
        "-e", "ZOTERO_API_KEY=PLACEHOLDER",
        "-e", "ZOTERO_LIBRARY_ID=PLACEHOLDER",
        "ghcr.io/kujenga/zotero-mcp:main"
      ],
    }
  }
}

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.