We Analyzed 4,584 MCP Servers — The Average Trust Score Is 53.9 Out of 100

#security #ai #mcp #opensource

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem is growing fast. Thousands of servers now expose tools that AI agents can call — calculators, databases, search engines, compliance checkers, weather APIs, and more.

But here's the problem nobody's talking about: how do you know which servers you can actually trust?

Static code scans and self-reported badges tell you what a server claims to be. They don't tell you how it behaves under real traffic, over time, under load.

We built the Dominion Observatory to answer that question with data. After 8 days of continuous behavioral monitoring, here's what 4,584 MCP servers look like when you measure them by what they actually do.

The Numbers

Metric	Value
Servers tracked	4,584
Categories	16
Total interactions recorded	5,846
Average trust score	53.9 / 100
Highest trust score	92.1
Servers scoring above 90	8

The average MCP server scores 53.9 out of 100. That's barely passing.

Trust by Category

Not all categories are equal:

Category	Servers	Avg Trust Score
Data	208	58.3
Code	317	57.9
Productivity	263	56.7
Finance	226	56.2
Health	26	56.2
Compliance	83	56.1
Security	52	55.9
Communication	164	55.6
Search	367	55.5
Education	67	55.4
Transport	39	55.1
Media	113	54.4
Other	1,880	52.6

Data and Code servers lead. These categories tend to have more structured, predictable behavior — which is exactly what trust scoring rewards.

The "Other" category is the long tail — 1,880 servers (41% of all tracked) that don't fit clean categories. Their below-average scores suggest many are experimental or poorly documented.

The Top 8: What High-Trust Servers Look Like

Only 8 servers score above 90:

Server	Category	Trust Score	Interactions
sg-cpf-calculator-mcp	Data	92.1	691
sg-gst-calculator-mcp	Finance	92.1	697
sg-workpass-compass-mcp	Data	92.0	692
sg-weather-data-mcp	Weather	92.0	698
asean-trade-rules-mcp	Data	91.8	691
sg-regulatory-data-mcp	Data	91.7	705
sg-finance-data-mcp	Finance	91.6	695
sg-company-lookup-mcp	Data	91.4	694

Patterns:

High interaction volume — 690+ interactions each. Trust is earned through consistent behavior, not a one-time scan.
Narrow scope — each does ONE thing well. Focused scope = predictable behavior = higher trust.
Structured data sources — they wrap government/institutional data, not arbitrary web scraping.

Why This Matters Now

For agent developers: The average server scores 53.9. Would you trust a contractor with a 54% reliability rating? Check scores before integrating.

For MCP server builders: Your behavioral footprint IS your reputation. You can't game it with a badge — you earn it by being reliable.

For compliance teams: The EU AI Act (Article 12) requires audit trails for AI system behavior. Static code reviews won't cut it. You need runtime behavioral baselines.

The Observatory SDK is a 3-line integration:

from dominion_observatory import ObservatoryClient

client = ObservatoryClient()
trust = client.check_trust("your-server-name")

For LangChain users: pip install dominion-observatory-langchain — a callback handler that auto-reports telemetry for every MCP tool call.

Methodology

Runtime behavioral analysis, not static scanning. Every interaction is recorded with anonymized telemetry (tool name, latency, success/fail — no PII, no payload content). Scores computed from response consistency, error rates, latency stability, and availability.

Full methodology: https://dominion-observatory.sgdata.workers.dev/methodology