Does MCP work offline?
▸ TL;DR
Yes if the MCP server itself is local (stdio transport). Network-based MCPs (HTTP/SSE) need internet. Local MCPs like filesystem, sqlite, git work fully offline.
Open Unyly catalogFull answer
MCP has two main transports: stdio (subprocess running locally) and HTTP/SSE (remote server). Stdio MCPs run on your machine and work offline by default. HTTP MCPs need a network connection to reach their endpoint. Common offline-capable MCPs: filesystem, sqlite, git, memory, time. The AI client (Claude Desktop, Cursor) itself usually needs internet to reach the LLM, so "offline MCP + online Claude" is the typical setup.
Related questions
What is the difference between MCP and function calling?
Function calling is a vendor-specific LLM API (OpenAI, Anthropic). MCP is an open protocol — same MCP server works with any client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code). MCP avoids vendor lock-in.
Is MCP secure?
Yes, when you use MCPs from a vetted catalog. Unyly auto-scans every MCP for leaked secrets and malicious dependencies. Avoid installing random GitHub gists without verification.
How do I write my own MCP server?
Use the official SDK in your language (TypeScript, Python, Go), define tools with JSON Schema, expose them via stdio or HTTP. Submit to unyly.org/submit so other users can discover it.