Topic · Uptime & observability
MCP server uptime monitoring
Uptime monitoring for MCP servers means continuously verifying not just that the host answers, but that the protocol handshake works, tools/list returns the schemas you last shipped, and response times stay in range — all at the 60-second cadence that agent-facing infrastructure demands.
TL;DR
Three uptime signals matter for an MCP server: protocol liveness (a real initialize succeeds), tool health (tools/list returns without error and the schema hash matches the last-known-good), and latency (p50 and p95 aren't trending up). AliveMCP checks all three every 60 seconds, for every public MCP endpoint it can find, and surfaces the results on a free public dashboard. Join the waitlist to claim your server.
What "uptime" means when the server is an MCP
Classical uptime monitoring defines "up" as: a TCP connection succeeds and the target returns a 2xx or 3xx HTTP status within a timeout. That's the right definition for a static site. It's the wrong definition for an MCP server, because:
- The server can be up on HTTP but broken on MCP — e.g. the JSON-RPC deserializer panics on every request and returns a 500-wrapped-as-200 with an empty body.
- The server can be up on MCP but wrong — a deployment removed a tool, or changed its input schema; downstream agents get malformed arguments rejected.
- The server can be up and correct but too slow — a 4-second first-token latency pushes agents into timeout, which the user experiences as "the product is broken."
Real uptime monitoring covers all three. That's the baseline — not a premium feature.
The three signals every monitor should emit
- Protocol liveness. An
initializerequest completes and the response advertises theprotocolVersionyou expect. No version match? Flag it — the client is talking to the wrong server. - Tool health + schema hash. Immediately after
initialize, calltools/list. Hash the returned tool definitions. Compare against last-known-good. A change is not always bad, but it's always something someone should see. - Latency envelope. Track p50 and p95 response times over the last 1h / 24h / 7d windows. Alert on sustained p95 > 3× baseline, not on a single slow call.
Why it matters right now
In April 2026 we scanned 2,181 remote MCP endpoints across the major public registries. Only 9% were fully healthy. The other 91% were either hard-down, returning malformed responses, or had broken auth. Most authors had no idea — because nothing was watching. This is the baseline AliveMCP was built to fix.
How AliveMCP helps
AliveMCP runs a 60-second probe against every MCP endpoint it discovers in MCP.so, Glama, PulseMCP, Smithery, and the Official Registry. For each server, you get a public /status/<server-slug> page with 90-day uptime, response-time trend, and a schema-drift event feed — as shown on the home page. Claim your listing on the Author tier for custom alert webhooks and a verified-author badge; upgrade to Team for private endpoints and a status-page subdomain. See full pricing.
Related questions
Is MCP server uptime the same as API uptime?
Partially. Protocol liveness overlaps with classic API monitoring, but MCP adds schema drift and tool-level health to the definition of "up" — a working API with the wrong tool schema is down as far as its agent callers are concerned.
What SLA should I target?
For agent-facing infrastructure, 99.5% is a realistic indie target — it tolerates ~3.6 hours of downtime per month. Enterprise MCPs typically commit to 99.9% with a documented recovery plan. Your customers will ask, and having a public status page is the honest answer.
Does AliveMCP monitor SSE servers?
Yes. We auto-detect the transport (HTTP POST vs SSE vs stdio where exposed via bridge) and adapt the probe shape. A server flipping between transports looks identical on the dashboard.