Agent-MCP vs Serena

A side-by-side comparison of two Developer Tools servers — tools, transport, auth, maintenance, and copy-paste config for each.

	Agent-MCP Multi-agent collaboration protocol: orchestrate specialized AI agents over MCP with a shared knowledge graph. Unverified stdio (local) API key Python	Serena LSP-powered coding agent toolkit: semantic symbol search, references and structural edits. Verified stdio (local) No auth Python
Category	Developer Tools	Developer Tools
Language	Python	Python
Transport	stdio (local)	stdio (local)
Auth	API key	None
GitHub stars	1.2k	12k
Last commit	2 months ago	15 days ago
Verified
Actively maintained
Install	`uv venv && uv install`	`uvx --from git+https://github.com/oraios/serena serena start-mcp-server`
Repo	Open	Open

Verdict

Pick Agent-MCP if you prefer its approach (multi-agent collaboration protocol: orchestrate specialized ai agents over mcp with a shared knowledge graph).

Pick Serena if you prefer the more popular, battle-tested option, and you want zero-setup with no API key.

Add Agent-MCP

Install / run

uv venv && uv install

Paste into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "agent-mcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-m",
        "agent_mcp.cli",
        "--port",
        "8080"
      ],
      "env": {
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "your-openai-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Add Serena

Install / run

uvx --from git+https://github.com/oraios/serena serena start-mcp-server

Paste into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "serena": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/oraios/serena",
        "serena",
        "start-mcp-server"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Requires `uv` (the Python package runner). Install it from https://docs.astral.sh/uv/ if `uvx` is not found.

FAQ

Agent-MCP or Serena — which is better?

Pick Agent-MCP if you prefer its approach (multi-agent collaboration protocol: orchestrate specialized ai agents over mcp with a shared knowledge graph). Pick Serena if you prefer the more popular, battle-tested option, and you want zero-setup with no API key.

Can I use both Agent-MCP and Serena?

Yes — MCP clients let you enable multiple servers at once. Add both configs to your client's mcpServers and use whichever tool fits the task.

Do Agent-MCP and Serena work with Claude, Cursor and Windsurf?

Both do. Copy the per-client config below into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf.

View Agent-MCP →View Serena →More comparisons →