# ContextForge review

> ContextForge is an open source gateway, registry, and proxy that federates MCP, A2A, and REST/gRPC APIs behind one endpoint.

Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026. Canonical page: https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/ibm-mcp-context-forge/

## TL;DR

ContextForge is an open source registry and proxy from IBM that federates MCP servers, A2A agents, and REST/gRPC APIs into one endpoint for AI clients. It suits teams that need centralized governance, discovery, and observability across AI infrastructure. It can wrap non-MCP services as virtual MCP servers and ships with an Admin UI and OpenTelemetry tracing.

## ContextForge at a glance

- **Category:** [MCP and agent tools](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/categories/mcp-servers/)
- **Maintained by:** International Business Machines (organization, [@IBM](https://github.com/IBM) on GitHub)
- **License:** Apache 2.0
- **Language:** Python, HTML, JavaScript
- **Repository:** [github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge)
- **Website:** [ibm.github.io/mcp-context-forge](https://ibm.github.io/mcp-context-forge/)
- **PyPI package:** [mcp-contextforge-gateway](https://pypi.org/project/mcp-contextforge-gateway/) 1.1.0
- **Latest release:** [v1.1.0](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.1.0) on GitHub, Oct 20, 2026
- **First published:** May 8, 2025

## What ContextForge does

- ContextForge federates multiple MCP servers and REST services and exposes them through a single, unified interface.
- ContextForge wraps REST and gRPC services as virtual MCP servers, using server reflection for gRPC-to-MCP translation.
- ContextForge routes A2A agents, including OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic agents, through its Agent Gateway.
- ContextForge provides built-in auth, retries, and rate limiting, with Basic, JWT, OAuth, and inbound mTLS options.
- ContextForge keeps registries for prompts (Jinja2 templates with versioning), resources, and tools with input validation.
- ContextForge traces tools, prompts, and gateway operations with OpenTelemetry to backends like Phoenix, Jaeger, and Zipkin.
- ContextForge includes an Admin UI for real-time management, configuration, and log monitoring, plus a separate Web UI container.

### How it works

ContextForge runs as a fully compliant MCP server, installed from PyPI or run as a Docker or Podman container. You register upstream MCP servers or APIs, then bundle their tools into virtual servers. AI clients connect over HTTP, JSON-RPC, WebSocket, SSE, or Streamable HTTP. Larger deployments run on Kubernetes with Redis-backed federation and caching, and Docker Compose sets up PostgreSQL and Redis.

## How to install ContextForge

**With pip**

```
pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway
```

**With uv**

```
uv pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway
```

**With Docker**

```
docker pull ghcr.io/ibm/mcp-context-forge:latest
```

### Requirements

- Python 3.12 or 3.13 for version 1.1.0 on PyPI (requires_python <3.14, >=3.12).
- JWT_SECRET_KEY and AUTH_ENCRYPTION_SECRET must be set in every environment, including local development.
- curl and jq for the smoke-test step only.

### First steps

1. Generate the required secrets with the bundled init script before the first run.
2. Start the gateway with mcpgateway --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4444.
3. Create a bearer token with mcpgateway.utils.create_jwt_token and call the /version endpoint to smoke-test.
4. Register an MCP server through the /gateways endpoint, then create a virtual server bundling its tools.

## Who ContextForge is for

- Platform teams putting many MCP servers and agents behind one governed endpoint.
- Developers exposing existing REST or gRPC services as MCP tools without rewriting them.
- Teams that need tracing, auth, and rate limiting for agent and tool calls.
- Organizations deploying on Kubernetes across multiple clusters.

### Limitations

- ContextForge container images do not support arm64 in production; Apple Silicon users can use Rosetta or install from PyPI.
- ContextForge will not start with placeholder secret values.
- ContextForge local Docker image builds need a wheel closure produced only by CI, so pull the pre-built image instead.

## Usage data (the week of Oct 25–31, 2026)

- Board rank: #294 overall, #47 in MCP and agent tools, momentum score 32
- Downloads that week: 8.5k (+2% vs 4-week average)
- New GitHub stars per week (last 12 weeks): Aug 9: 47; Aug 16: 27; Aug 23: 37; Aug 30: 43; Sep 6: 41; Sep 13: 36; Sep 20: 31; Sep 27: 35; Oct 4: 32; Oct 11: 53; Oct 18: 42; Oct 25: 46

## ContextForge alternatives

| Rank | Tool | Stars | Downloads/wk |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | [REA](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/morluto-rea/) | 415.5k | 760.6k |
| #2 | [ha-mcp](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/homeassistant-ai-ha-mcp/) | 5.4k | 118.1k |
| #3 | [Treg](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/superdesigndev-treg/) | 6.9k | 6.7k |
| #4 | [Chrome DevTools MCP](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/chrome-devtools-mcp/) | 54.6k | 2.7M |
| #5 | [codebase-memory-mcp](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/deusdata-codebase-memory-mcp/) | 47.9k | – |
| #6 | [open-computer-use](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/ifuryst-open-computer-use/) | 2.8k | – |

## ContextForge FAQ

### Is ContextForge free and open source?

Yes. ContextForge's source code is on GitHub (IBM/mcp-context-forge) under the Apache 2.0 license, so you can use it for free.

### How do I install ContextForge?

Run `pip install mcp-contextforge-gateway`. The mcp-contextforge-gateway package needs Python 3.12 or newer, below 3.14. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

### Is ContextForge still maintained?

Yes. The IBM/mcp-context-forge repository was last updated on Oct 21, 2026, and the latest release, v1.1.0 on GitHub, came out on Oct 20, 2026.

### How popular is ContextForge?

ContextForge has 4.7k GitHub stars as of Nov 1, 2026. It gained 46 new stars in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, against a 12-week average of 39 a week. Its main package had 8.5k downloads that week, +2% against its own 4-week average. That made it #47 among MCP servers and agent tools on the Devtoolwatch Board.

### What are the best alternatives to ContextForge?

Other MCP servers and agent tools on the Devtoolwatch Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum: REA (#1), ha-mcp (#2), Treg (#3), Chrome DevTools MCP (#4), codebase-memory-mcp (#5). The alternatives table above has their numbers.

### What is ContextForge?

ContextForge is an open source registry and proxy that federates MCP servers, A2A agents, and REST/gRPC APIs into one endpoint for AI clients. It adds centralized governance, discovery, and observability, and supports plugins.

### Can ContextForge turn a REST or gRPC API into MCP tools?

Yes. ContextForge wraps non-MCP services as virtual MCP servers. REST APIs are adapted with automatic JSON Schema extraction and auth support, and gRPC services are translated through server reflection.

### Which transports does ContextForge support?

ContextForge supports HTTP, JSON-RPC, WebSocket, SSE with configurable keepalive, and Streamable HTTP. stdio transport is available for server-side use, and mcpgateway.translate can expose a stdio server over SSE and Streamable HTTP.

### What changed in ContextForge 1.1.0?

ContextForge 1.1.0 turns modern MCP protocol negotiation on by default. It adds federated completions, MCP catalog pagination, Origin/Host transport security enforcement, and tool-name collision detection. It also removes the in-tree mcp-servers/ directory.

### Which observability backends does ContextForge work with?

ContextForge uses OpenTelemetry (OTLP) and supports Phoenix, Jaeger, Zipkin, Tempo, DataDog, and New Relic. It records LLM metrics such as token usage and costs, and it adds no overhead when tracing is disabled.

## Sources

1. [IBM/mcp-context-forge on GitHub](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge)
2. [ContextForge README](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/blob/main/README.md)
3. [mcp-contextforge-gateway on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/mcp-contextforge-gateway/)
4. [ContextForge website](https://ibm.github.io/mcp-context-forge/)
5. [Release v1.1.0 (Oct 20, 2026)](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.1.0)
6. [Release v1.0.11 (Sep 28, 2026)](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.0.11)
7. [Release v1.0.7-20260921 (Sep 21, 2026)](https://github.com/IBM/mcp-context-forge/releases/tag/v1.0.7-20260921)
8. [Hacker News: IBM Type](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15650663)
9. [Hacker News: MCP Gateway and Registry](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45010524)
10. [Devtoolwatch Board, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/)