MCP Servers, by the Job They Do

This is a starter list, not a catalog. Six public MCP servers, grouped by use case, each with the vendor's own link and one safety note. There is no search, no crawl, and no claim that these are the only servers worth using.

New here? Read what an MCP server is, then how to connect one to Claude. Install one row. Leave the others alone until that connection is dull.

Start here: local files

Filesystem server. The official local-server tutorial launches @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem and passes only the directories it may touch. The collection those reference servers live in is modelcontextprotocol/servers.

Safety. The paths in the arguments are the allowlist. Do not pass your home directory while you are still checking that the server starts.

Browser

Playwright MCP — Microsoft's server drives a browser through Playwright's accessibility tree, so the model reads a structured page instead of a screenshot. github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp. The README's Desktop-style launch is npx @playwright/mcp@latest.

Safety. This is not a folder grant. A model that can click and type can act in whatever browser profile that server opens, including sites you are signed into.

GitHub

GitHub MCP Server — GitHub's official server reads repositories, issues, and pull requests, and can change them when the connected account is allowed to. github.com/github/github-mcp-server. The README documents a remote server at https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/, with OAuth or a personal access token, plus a local server if the host cannot open a remote one.

Safety. The token or OAuth session is your GitHub user. Prefer OAuth over pasting a personal access token into a config file. Do not commit either one.

Voice

ElevenLabs MCP — speech and audio tools (synthesis, transcription, and the related audio APIs the vendor exposes). ElevenLabs' introduction. The local GitHub repository for this server is archived. The vendor's current path is the hosted server at https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/mcp, which signs in with OAuth so an API key is not copied into the client.

Safety. Use the hosted server the vendor still documents. An archived local checkout can still ask you to paste a key into a config file. That is the path they told people to leave.

SEO

These two sit on paid SEO APIs. They do not give an agent a free copy of the web.

Ahrefs MCP — Site Explorer, keywords, rank tracking, and site audit, exposed as MCP tools. The remote server is https://api.ahrefs.com/mcp/mcp. Ahrefs' own write-up is their MCP use-cases post, and tool groups are documented at docs.ahrefs.com. The old local repository Ahrefs/ahrefs-mcp-server is archived. Ahrefs says it is outdated, it only worked with API v3 keys, and they do not recommend it.

Safety. Connect the remote URL, with an MCP key, on a plan that includes it (Ahrefs names Lite and above). If a client caps how many tools it will accept, their docs let you pass ?tools= so you do not advertise the entire surface.

DataForSEO MCP — a protocol face on DataForSEO's APIs, including a docs browser and authenticated API calls. Vendor page: dataforseo.com/model-context-protocol. They document a remote endpoint at https://mcp.dataforseo.com/v3/mcp and a local npx dataforseo-mcp-server mode. The source repository named by the current npm package is dataforseo/mcp-server-typescript.

Safety. The remote server wants your API login and password as Basic auth, or OAuth where they offer it. Those credentials are the account. Keep them in the host's secret store, not in a committed .mcp.json.

What this page is not

It is not a crawled directory, a ranking, or a place to submit a server. Servers get on this list when there is a vendor page worth linking and a concrete safety note. The field list and the rules for adding a row live with the site, not on this page.

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