filesystem vs ida-headless-mcp

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

	filesystem by modelcontextprotocol	ida-headless-mcp by zboralski
Stars	★ 85,748	★ 115
30d uses	—	—
Score	77	47
Official	✓	—
Categories	File SystemDeveloper ToolsProductivity	Developer ToolsSecurityAI / LLM Tools
Language	TypeScript	Python
Last commit	this month	3 mo ago

filesystem · Summary

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

ida-headless-mcp · Summary

A headless IDA Pro binary analysis server providing 52 MCP tools for reverse engineering with multi-session concurrency.

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

ida-headless-mcp · Use cases

Automated binary analysis in reverse engineering workflows
Security auditing of compiled software binaries
Integration of IDA Pro capabilities with AI assistants for code analysis
Malware analysis through AI-assisted reverse engineering

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.

ida-headless-mcp · Install

Installation

Clone the repository:

``bash git clone <repo-url> cd ida-headless-mcp ``

Run setup:

``bash make setup `` This automatically sets up idalib, installs Python dependencies, and builds the Go server.

Start the server:

``bash ./bin/ida-mcp-server `` The server runs on port 17300 by default.

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ida-headless": {
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:17300/",
      "type": "http"
    }
  }
}

Manual Setup

For troubleshooting or custom setup:

./scripts/setup_idalib.sh   # Setup idalib
make install-python         # Install Python dependencies
make build                  # Build Go server

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