filesystem vs restheart

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

	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol	restheart by SoftInstigate
Stars	★ 85,748	★ 875
30d uses	—	—
Score	77	54
Official	✓	—
Categories	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity	DatabaseAI / LLM ToolsDeveloper Tools
Language	TypeScript	Java
Last commit	this month	this month

filesystem · Summary

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

restheart · Summary

RESTHeart is a MongoDB backend that provides a native MCP server for AI agents to access data via REST and GraphQL APIs.

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

restheart · Use cases

AI agent backends for accessing MongoDB data via MCP
API development without boilerplate code
Real-time applications with WebSocket and SSE
Legacy modernization by adding modern APIs to existing MongoDB databases

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.

restheart · Install

Quick Start Options

**Option 1 — RESTHeart Cloud (no install)** Sign up for the fully managed service at [cloud.restheart.com](https://cloud.restheart.com/signup)

**Option 2 — Docker Compose (local)**

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SoftInstigate/restheart/master/docker-compose.yml --output docker-compose.yml && docker compose up --attach restheart

Default credentials: admin / secret

**Option 3 — Native Executables** Download prebuilt binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows from [docs/native-executables.md](https://github.com/SoftInstigate/restheart/blob/master/docs/native-executables.md)

**Claude Desktop Setup** In Claude Desktop settings, add a custom connector with context URL: https://sophia-api.restheart.com/mcp/restheart/

**Claude Code Setup**

claude mcp add --transport http sophia-restheart https://sophia-api.restheart.com/mcp/restheart

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