Short answer: these are not the same kind of product, and the usual "which is cheaper" question does not apply. SkillsMP is a free index: it collects SKILL.md files from public GitHub repositories and helps you find them, then sends you to the original repository. SkillGild is a reviewed catalog: far fewer skills, but each one has a checked author, license and source, a one-command install for your agent, and hosted skills that run on our servers with a free monthly allowance. Use SkillsMP to discover what exists; use SkillGild when you want to install something and know what you are installing.
We publish SkillGild, so read this as a comparison from one side. Every SkillsMP fact below comes from its own public pages, checked on 9 October 2026 and linked where it is used. We have not benchmarked search quality on either service.
SkillsMP vs SkillGild at a glance
| SkillsMP | SkillGild | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | "An Open Map of the Agent Skills Ecosystem" | A reviewed marketplace with hosted and community skills |
| Catalog size | Claims "3M+" SKILL.md files from public GitHub repositories | Tens of skills, each read before listing |
| How entries arrive | Collected from public repositories | Reviewed one at a time: author, license, source, SKILL.md
|
| Install path | None described in its docs; it links you to the source | skillgild install <slug> --agent claude-code |
| Agents named | Claude Code, Codex CLI, ChatGPT | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI |
| Hosted execution | No | Yes, for hosted skills, through the SkillGild MCP server |
| Price | "completely free", "No paid tiers" | Free skills with 25 runs a month; Pro from $6.99 a month |
| Programmatic access | REST API and an MCP endpoint | MCP server, CLI and SDKs |
| Who runs it | "an independent community project", written in the first person | A company, with refunds, support and a creator program |
SkillsMP's description of itself, its "3M+" figure and the languages and occupation counts come from its home page and about page; the absence of an install path is from its documentation. SkillGild's prices are shown for your country, as on our pricing page.
The real difference is review, not price
SkillsMP is free and says so plainly: its home page describes the service as "completely free" with "No paid tiers", funded by donations. There is no subscription to compare against, so a pricing table would tell you nothing useful.
What differs is what happens between a skill existing and you running it.
SkillsMP indexes at scale and hands you back to the source. Its about page says the project exists to "Collect 3M+ SKILL.md files from public GitHub repositories" and to "Show creators, repositories, and source links". It is explicit that it does not vet what it collects: the same page says SkillsMP "does not rush to judge skills", and it tells readers to "Return to the real source before deciding whether to install or reuse anything" and to "Always review code before installation". That is honest, and it puts the review work on you.
SkillGild reviews before listing. A skill reaches our catalog only after someone has read its README and its SKILL.md, confirmed the author and the repository, and recorded the license, including an honest "not stated" when the repository has no license file. Community skills are listed and installed from their own repositories, never copied or re-hosted, and the author is credited on the page. That is why our catalog is measured in tens rather than millions.
Neither approach is wrong. An index of three million files answers "does something like this exist?". A reviewed catalog answers "can I install this one safely, and what am I agreeing to?".
Installing: one command against a trip to GitHub
This is the most practical difference.
SkillsMP's documentation describes no installation method at all, and points to Anthropic's own documentation instead: "For detailed guides on how to install and use Skills, please refer to the official documentation". Once you have found a skill there, you open its repository and copy the folder into your agent's skills directory yourself.
On SkillGild, every listing carries a working command:
skillgild install humanizer --agent claude-code
Use --agent codex, cursor or gemini-cli for other clients, and the CLI writes to the right directory for each. The install guide covers folder paths, global against per-project installs and what to check when a skill does not load.
If you prefer the manual route, it works the same from either source: a skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md, and copying it into ~/.claude/skills/ is enough.
Running a skill: local files against hosted tools
Every skill SkillsMP indexes is an open-source folder that runs locally in your agent, on your own model usage. SkillGild lists those too, on exactly the same terms.
SkillGild also has a second kind. A hosted skill installs a small wrapper, and the work runs on our servers through the SkillGild MCP server. That keeps a creator's private prompts and server-side tools off your machine, lets tools improve without a reinstall, and counts runs against a monthly allowance. The run modes page explains both. An index of public repositories has nothing equivalent, because there is nothing to host.
Programmatic access
Both services are built to be queried by agents rather than only by people.
SkillsMP publishes a REST API and an MCP endpoint. Its home page states the limits: 50 requests a day anonymously, 500 a day with a free API key, and MCP access with no API key and no daily quota, subject to shorter per-IP limits.
SkillGild's MCP server serves the catalog and runs hosted skills, and there are open-source SDKs for TypeScript, Python and Go, covered in the agent skills SDK guide. The difference matches the products: SkillsMP's API returns pointers to repositories, and SkillGild's runs the skill.
Which to use
- Finding out whether a skill already exists for some job. SkillsMP, by a wide margin. Nothing else indexes the ecosystem at that scale, and it is free.
- Installing something today and knowing what it is. SkillGild, because the author, license and source have been checked and the install is one command. Or SkillsMP plus your own review of the repository, which is the same work done by hand.
- Running a skill without putting its code on your machine. Only SkillGild's hosted skills do this.
- Browsing by job rather than by name. Both, differently: SkillsMP organises by occupation and category across everything it has collected; SkillGild's best Claude Code skills and category pages are editorial picks with reasons attached.
Most people end up using both, and that is a reasonable outcome. They answer different questions.
How we checked this
Every SkillsMP claim above is quoted from its home page, about page or documentation on 9 October 2026, and linked where used. We did not test its search quality, measure its index, or verify the "3M+" figure independently; it is the figure the site publishes. Third-party write-ups quote wildly different counts for SkillsMP, from twenty-five thousand to several hundred thousand, which is one reason we cite only the site's own number and the date we read it.
We have not compared the two on anything we cannot show you. There is no measured winner here on search relevance or catalog quality, and a comparison written by one of the two parties should not be the only thing you read. The wider survey is in best AI agent skill marketplaces, and the closest comparison to this one is Skillry vs SkillGild, where both services do charge and a price comparison is meaningful.
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