mcp-remote review

Q: How do I install mcp-remote?

Run npx mcp-remote https://example.remote/server --transport sse-only. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

mcp-remote is a proxy that lets MCP clients supporting only local stdio servers connect to remote MCP servers, with OAuth support.

Updated Nov 1, 2026. Review written Oct 22, 2026 from the project's own sources; usage data refreshed every Monday.

TL;DR

mcp-remote connects stdio-only MCP clients such as Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf to remote MCP servers. It is for developers who want to use remote, authorized servers before their client supports them. mcp-remote handles OAuth flows, custom headers, transport fallback and protocol-era translation.

1.7kGitHub stars
+11new stars, week of Oct 25
–not ranked this week

mcp-remote at a glance

Category: MCP and agent tools
Maintained by: Frank Fiegel (individual, @punkpeye on GitHub)
License: MIT
Language: TypeScript, JavaScript
Repository: github.com/punkpeye/mcp-remote
Website: glama.ai/mcp/servers
npm package: mcp-remote 0.15.2
Latest release: v0.15.2 on GitHub, Oct 20, 2026
First published: Mar 20, 2025

What mcp-remote does

mcp-remote bridges a local stdio MCP client to a remote MCP server over HTTP or Server-Sent Events.
mcp-remote runs OAuth sign-in through a local callback and keeps separate OAuth sessions per server URL, resource, headers and authorize parameters.
mcp-remote sends custom headers from CLI arguments or from a header file that keeps credentials out of the process list.
mcp-remote supports transport strategies: http-first by default, sse-first, http-only and sse-only.
mcp-remote can filter remote tools with wildcard patterns, hiding them from tools/list and blocking tools/call.
mcp-remote with --protocol auto acts as a dual-era client, translating legacy clients to 2026-07-28 MCP servers.
mcp-remote offers network controls: timeouts, keep-alive pings, IPv4-only mode and an outbound HTTP(S) proxy.

How it works

You add mcp-remote to your MCP client config as an npx command, with the remote server URL as an argument. The client talks to mcp-remote over stdio. mcp-remote forwards requests to the remote server over HTTP or SSE and handles OAuth through a browser callback on a local port. The package ships two binaries, mcp-remote and mcp-remote-client.

How to install and start using mcp-remote

Run with npx

npx mcp-remote https://example.remote/server --transport sse-only

Requirements

npx, which the documented config uses to run the mcp-remote npm package.
HTTPS remote server URLs by default; HTTP requires the --allow-http flag on trusted private networks.

First steps

Add an mcpServers entry to your client config with command npx and args mcp-remote plus the remote server URL.
If npx produces errors, add -y as the first argument to auto-accept installing the mcp-remote package.
Complete the OAuth sign-in in the browser when mcp-remote opens the authorization page.
Add --debug to write verbose logs to ~/.mcp-auth/{server_hash}_debug.log if the connection fails.

Who mcp-remote is for

Users of stdio-only MCP clients like Claude Desktop, Cursor or Windsurf who need remote MCP servers.
Teams connecting to OAuth-protected remote servers, including Atlassian, Google, Auth0 or Entra ID setups.
Developers running multiple tenants of the same remote server with isolated OAuth sessions.

Limitations to know

mcp-remote is a stopgap: the README says to remove it once your MCP client supports remote, authorized servers.
Cursor, Codex-Cli and Claude Desktop on Windows mangle spaces in args, so header values need an env-var workaround.
Support for 2026-07-28 protocol servers is off by default and requires --protocol auto.
By default, mcp-remote closes an idle SSE stream after five minutes unless you set --body-timeout 0.

Is mcp-remote growing? Usage data

mcp-remote was not ranked on the Devtoolwatch Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026: it needs 25 or more new stars or 1,000 or more added downloads in a week to rank.

New GitHub stars per week for the last 12 weeks, from GitHub's stargazer history (today's stargazers by the week they starred).

Show the weekly numbers

New GitHub stars per week for mcp-remote
Week of	New stars
Aug 9, 2026	7
Aug 16, 2026	9
Aug 23, 2026	13
Aug 30, 2026	9
Sep 6, 2026	9
Sep 13, 2026	12
Sep 20, 2026	7
Sep 27, 2026	13
Oct 4, 2026	9
Oct 11, 2026	12
Oct 18, 2026	16
Oct 25, 2026	11

On Hacker News

OpenAI is good at unminifying code, 931 points and 304 comments (Aug 29, 2024)
Prompt Injecting Contributing.md, 138 points and 40 comments (Mar 19, 2026)
The Hackers Who Tracked My Sleep Cycle, 60 points and 8 comments (Mar 26, 2026)
OpenTelemetry for MCP, 14 points and 0 comments (Dec 1, 2025)
Show HN: Anthropic's MCP Server Directory, 11 points and 6 comments (Dec 17, 2024)

The Board ranks tools by four signals each week: new stars, new stars for the repo's size, added downloads and download growth beyond the market. How the ranking works.

mcp-remote alternatives

Other MCP servers and agent tools on the Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum:

MCP and agent tools ranked by momentum, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026
Rank	Tool	Stars	Downloads/wk
#1	REAREA is an MCP server and CLI that lets coding agents reverse engineer native binaries, JavaScript and Electron apps, .NET assemblies,…	415.5k	760.6k
#2	ha-mcpha-mcp is an unofficial Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants control and manage Home Assistant using natural language.	5.4k	118.1k
#3	TregTreg is a registry and proxy that gives AI agents one token for a catalog of paid third-party API endpoints and team-shared tools.	6.9k	6.7k
#4	Chrome DevTools MCPChrome DevTools MCP is an MCP server and CLI that lets coding agents control and inspect a live Chrome browser using Chrome DevTools.	54.6k	2.7M
#5	codebase-memory-mcpHigh-performance code intelligence MCP server. Indexes codebases into a persistent knowledge graph — average repo in milliseconds. 162…	47.9k	–
#6	open-computer-use👾 Open Computer Use – Open-Source Alternative to Codex Computer Use	2.8k	–

All MCP servers and agent tools, ranked

Recent mcp-remote releases

v0.15.2, Oct 20, 2026
v0.15.1, Oct 14, 2026
v0.15.0, Oct 14, 2026
v0.14.5, Oct 14, 2026
v0.14.4, Oct 14, 2026

mcp-remote FAQ

Is mcp-remote free and open source?

Yes. mcp-remote's source code is on GitHub (punkpeye/mcp-remote) under the MIT license, so you can use it for free.

How do I install mcp-remote?

Run npx mcp-remote https://example.remote/server --transport sse-only. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

Is mcp-remote still maintained?

Yes. The punkpeye/mcp-remote repository was last updated on Oct 20, 2026, and the latest release, v0.15.2 on GitHub, came out on Oct 20, 2026.

How popular is mcp-remote?

mcp-remote has 1.7k GitHub stars as of Nov 1, 2026. It gained 11 new stars in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, against a 12-week average of 11 a week.

What are the best alternatives to mcp-remote?

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.

Why would I need mcp-remote?

mcp-remote lets clients that only support local stdio servers use remote MCP servers. According to the README, most clients are stdio-only, and those that support HTTP+SSE don't yet support the required OAuth flows.

How do I pass an API token instead of using OAuth?

mcp-remote accepts --header arguments, such as an Authorization Bearer header, on all requests. To keep the credential out of the process list, use --header-file with one Name: value per line.

Can I connect to the same server with different accounts?

mcp-remote supports this with the --resource flag. Each unique combination of server URL, resource, custom headers and --authorize-param values keeps separate OAuth sessions and token storage.

What if my authorization server rejects the resource parameter?

mcp-remote has a --disable-resource-parameter flag that omits the resource parameter entirely. The README gives Microsoft Entra ID v2, which answers AADSTS9010010, as an example.

Can I block destructive tools from a remote server?

mcp-remote can block them with --ignore-tool and wildcard patterns such as delete*. Matching tools are filtered from tools/list responses, and calls to them are blocked.

Sources

mcp-remote README badge

Maintainers can show the tool's weekly Board rank in their README:

[![Devtoolwatch](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/badge/mcp-remote.svg)](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/mcp-remote/)

How this page is made: Devtoolwatch writes each review from the project's README, releases, package metadata and website, with an AI model, then checks every claim against the source it cites and drops what the sources don't support. The numbers come from Devtoolwatch's daily GitHub snapshots, GitHub's stargazer history, and the npm and PyPI download APIs. Spotted an error? Email [email protected].