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time vs ref-tools-mcp

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

time
by modelcontextprotocol
ref-tools-mcp
by ref-tools
Stars★ 85,748★ 1,104
30d uses
Score7754
Official
Categories
ProductivityDeveloper ToolsCommunication
Developer ToolsAI / LLM ToolsSearch
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Last committhis monththis month

time · Summary

A comprehensive MCP server providing time and timezone conversion tools with automatic system timezone detection.

ref-tools-mcp · Summary

Ref MCP provides token-efficient API documentation search tools to reduce context rot and minimize costs.

time · Use cases

  • Assisting with international meeting scheduling across time zones
  • Providing real-time time information for location-based queries
  • Enabling time conversion for travel planning and itineraries

ref-tools-mcp · Use cases

  • AI coding agents searching API documentation without overwhelming context windows
  • Development teams maintaining up-to-date references for multiple services
  • Cost reduction by minimizing token usage when fetching documentation

time · Install

Installation Options

**Using uv (recommended):**

uvx mcp-server-time

**Using PIP:**

pip install mcp-server-time
python -m mcp_server_time

**Configure for Claude Desktop:**

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

ref-tools-mcp · Install

Installation Options

Streamable HTTP (Recommended)

Add to your Cursor configuration:

"Ref": {
  "type": "http",
  "url": "https://api.ref.tools/mcp?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"
}

stdio (Legacy)

Add to your Cursor configuration:

"Ref": {
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["ref-tools-mcp@latest"],
  "env": {
    "REF_API_KEY": <sign up to get an api key>
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ref-tools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["ref-tools-mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}
Comparison generated from public README + GitHub signals. Last updated automatically.