MCP Inspector
Debugging tool in Developer tools
Free tool for interactively testing MCP servers from a UI or CLI; well suited to local STDIO servers. Caveat: the 2.0.0 release is reported broken in common connection cases.
Free tool for interactively testing MCP servers from a UI or CLI; well suited to local STDIO servers. Caveat: the 2.0.0 release is reported broken in common connection cases.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Interactive and CLI usage
“The documentation for the --cli mode is a bit lacking, but I got there in the end”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest” “It’s a nice tool, can be used interactively, can be used as a CLI.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
2.0.0 release broken in common connections
“The 2.0.0 that was released last week is highly broken even for some of the most common connection scenarios.”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest” Lacking --cli mode documentation
“The documentation for the --cli mode is a bit lacking, but I got there in the end”
Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git bisect | 44 | 5 | 90% | 5 | — | Approved |
| MCP InspectorThis page | 7 | 2 | 78% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I always missed something like this in the MCP Inspector”
“far from the best MCP inspector out there”
“Why didn't Simon use MCP Inspector?”
“The 2.0.0 that was released last week is highly broken even for some of the most common connection scenarios.”
“The documentation for the --cli mode is a bit lacking, but I got there in the end”
“It’s a nice tool, can be used interactively, can be used as a CLI.”
“Inspector is the right tool for local STDIO servers — use it.”
“We also shipped an MCP Inspector to make the dev loop much less painful”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.