mcp-use__mcp-use/benchmark.md

mcp-use SDK v2 benchmarks

This report compares mcp-use v2 with mcp-use v1, the official TypeScript SDK, and representative TypeScript MCP frameworks. The established performance and launch figures use the published mcp-use@2.0.0-beta.64 package and were recorded on July 27–28, 2026. All measurements used Node.js 24.15.0. The npm tarball was measured from the 2.0.0-beta.64 package candidate after removing the temporary v1 compatibility layer.

Results at a glance

Compared with mcp-use v1, v2 measured:

• 27% higher median throughput: 8,615.0 → 10,982.2 operations per second
• 55% lower cold-launch time: 151.603 → 68.145 ms
• 82% smaller clean install: 404.6 → 74.4 MiB
• 84% fewer installed packages: 365 → 57
• 74% smaller npm tarball: 1,155 → 302 KiB
• 36% smaller equivalent MCP App build: 1.289 → 0.828 MB

Throughput

Higher is better. mcp-use v2 is isolated in the first chart series; the second series contains the other TypeScript fixtures.

xychart
  title "Median operations per second"
  x-axis ["tmcp", "mcp-use v2", "mcp-use v1", "Skybridge", "Official v2", "Official v1", "FastMCP TS", "xmcp", "mcp-handler"]
  y-axis "operations per second" 0 --> 20000
  bar [0, 10982, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  bar [18425, 0, 8615, 8116, 8050, 6914, 6628, 6585, 6324]

mcp-use v2 delivered 10,982.2 median operations per second, 27.5% above mcp-use v1, 36.4% above the equivalent official TypeScript SDK v2 fixture, and 65.7% above FastMCP TypeScript.

Custom stateless request handling and optimized response paths on top of the official SDK made mcp-use v2 the fastest TypeScript framework with native MCP Apps support in this test.

Framework	Version	Protocol	Median ops/s	p95	p99	Stability
tmcp	1.19.4	2025-06-18	18,424.5	2 ms	3 ms	100
mcp-use v2	2.0.0-beta.61	2026-07-28	10,982.2	4 ms	6 ms	100
mcp-use v1	1.34.5	2025-11-25	8,615.0	4 ms	6 ms	100
Skybridge	1.2.6	2025-11-25	8,116.4	4 ms	6 ms	100
Official SDK v2	2.0.0-beta.5	2026-07-28	8,049.8	5 ms	7 ms	100
Official SDK v1	1.29.0	2025-11-25	6,914.1	5 ms	7 ms	100
FastMCP TypeScript	1.2.0	2026-07-28	6,628.2	6 ms	8 ms	100
xmcp	0.6.13	2025-11-25	6,585.1	6 ms	8 ms	100
mcp-handler	1.1.0	2025-11-25	6,324.4	6 ms	9 ms	100

Cold launch

Lower is better. Each result is the median of 100 recorded process starts after 10 warmups, with launch order rotated across all targets.

xychart
  title "Median cold launch in milliseconds"
  x-axis ["Official v2", "mcp-use v2", "xmcp", "tmcp", "Official v1", "FastMCP TS", "mcp-use v1", "mcp-handler", "Skybridge"]
  y-axis "milliseconds" 0 --> 180
  bar [0, 68.145, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  bar [67.839, 0, 68.814, 77.740, 108.039, 139.123, 151.603, 158.498, 168.260]

Framework	Median	Interquartile range
Official SDK v2	67.839 ms	66.881–69.522 ms
mcp-use v2	68.145 ms	67.049–69.306 ms
xmcp	68.814 ms	67.894–70.376 ms
tmcp	77.740 ms	76.678–79.388 ms
Official SDK v1	108.039 ms	106.498–110.417 ms
FastMCP TypeScript	139.123 ms	136.750–142.884 ms
mcp-use v1	151.603 ms	149.258–154.942 ms
mcp-handler	158.498 ms	155.539–162.677 ms
Skybridge	168.260 ms	166.513–171.449 ms

The mcp-use v2 and official SDK v2 distributions overlap. Their 0.306 ms median difference is measurement noise, not a meaningful product advantage.

Install footprint

Lower is better. Every row represents a development stack capable of authoring and building a custom React MCP App, not merely installing the server framework. Frameworks that do not include that workflow receive the same Apps, React, Vite, and TypeScript dependencies required by the equivalent official SDK stack.

Clean install measures the actual node_modules directory after a normal npm install, including required peer dependencies and filesystem allocation. It therefore differs from npmx's modeled size, which excludes peer dependencies.

xychart
  title "Custom MCP App development stack in MiB"
  x-axis ["FastMCP TS", "mcp-use v2", "xmcp", "Skybridge", "mcp-use v1"]
  y-axis "MiB on disk" 0 --> 450
  bar [0, 74.4, 0, 0, 0]
  bar [122.5, 0, 121.9, 137.5, 404.6]

Framework	Direct install set	Disk	Installed packages
mcp-use v2	mcp-use + zod	74.4 MiB	57
xmcp	xmcp + zod	121.9 MiB	171
FastMCP TypeScript	FastMCP + Apps extension + React/Vite build set	122.5 MiB	180
Skybridge	skybridge + zod	137.5 MiB	300
mcp-use v1 baseline	mcp-use + zod	404.6 MiB	365

mcp-use v2 had the smallest measured equivalent MCP App development stack and the fewest installed package entries.

Package and MCP App build size

The packed mcp-use@2.0.0-beta.64 candidate measured 302 KiB compressed (309,027 bytes), 73.9% smaller than v1's 1,155 KiB tarball. Removing the temporary v1 facade and legacy widget adapters reduced the candidate from 349 KiB (357,628 bytes) to 302 KiB, a 13.6% reduction. Its unpacked contents fell from 1,417,415 bytes across 125 files to 1,249,746 bytes across 116 files.

For the application build, both versions used the same React launch card, CSS, and one echo tool.

xychart
  title "Equivalent MCP App production build"
  x-axis ["mcp-use v2", "mcp-use v1"]
  y-axis "megabytes" 0 --> 1.4
  bar [0.828, 0]
  bar [0, 1.289]

Version	Raw build	gzip archive	Files
mcp-use v2	0.828 MB	214 KiB	4
mcp-use v1	1.289 MB	351 KiB	12

v2 was 35.8% smaller raw and 39.1% smaller after gzip. We do not present a cross-framework build-size leaderboard because the other projects emit different server and UI artifact boundaries.

How this relates to the official SDK

mcp-use builds on the official @modelcontextprotocol/core, server, and client packages for protocol compatibility. It adds a typed server API, custom stateless request and response paths, generated tool-to-View contracts, scaffolding, Inspector integration, verification, and deployment workflows.

The official server package is the low-level protocol baseline in this report. MCP Apps are available through the separate @modelcontextprotocol/ext-apps extension and application-specific resource, metadata, build, and type wiring. mcp-use makes Views a native framework feature and carries their contracts from the tool definition through React and the Inspector.

mcp-use adds framework-level performance improvements on top of the official SDK, including custom stateless request handling and optimized response paths. Those improvements delivered 36.4% higher median throughput than the equivalent official SDK v2 fixture in this benchmark.

Methodology

Load workload

• Published packages were tested instead of local source builds, except for the explicitly identified 2.0.0-beta.64 package-candidate tarball measurement.
• The load generator was MCP Drill at source commit 284244af63efb109959ccf3cecea0000bad3bfe3.
• Every server exposed the same benchmark_echo tool.
• The operation mix was one tools/list call for every nine tools/call operations.
• Each run used a 3-second preflight, 5 virtual users for 5 seconds, then a 15-second ramp to 50 virtual users.
• Each target received three rounds with rotated order in its accepted measurement window. Every slot used a fresh framework process and fresh MCP Drill control and worker containers.
• Reported throughput and latency values are medians across the three accepted rounds.
• All nine TypeScript targets received MCP Drill's stability score of 100.

Launch workload

• Every target received 10 warmup launches and 100 recorded launches.
• Target order rotated on every round.
• Timing started before process creation and stopped when the TCP listener accepted a connection.
• Each process was terminated before the next sample.

Install and build measurements

• Clean install size is the on-disk dependency tree after installing the direct package set shown in the table.
• FastMCP's equivalent stack pins @prefecthq/fastmcp-ts@1.2.0, @modelcontextprotocol/ext-apps@1.7.5, @vitejs/plugin-react@6.0.4, React and React DOM 19.2.8, TypeScript 7.0.2, Vite 8.1.5, and zod 4.4.3.
• Installed-package counts are the physical package entries reported by npm ls --all --parseable, excluding the fixture root.
• Tarball size is the compressed size of the package produced by pnpm pack.
• The v1 and v2 App builds use equivalent source content and production build settings.

Limits and claim boundaries

• Absolute localhost results move with machine load, scheduler behavior, and thermal conditions.
• The TypeScript throughput field spans protocol generations and framework scopes.
• Install comparisons are meaningful only when the tested package scope is equivalent.
• Production builds are compared only between mcp-use v1 and v2 because the other frameworks emit different artifact boundaries.
• The established framework results were recorded July 27–28; FastMCP TypeScript was recorded July 30 with the same harness and workload.
• Incomplete diagnostic and fixture-reconstruction attempts were rejected before aggregation; only complete accepted rotations appear above.
• There is no composite “overall score.”

Use the scoped result: fastest TypeScript framework with native MCP Apps support in this unified nine-framework test.