cli alternatives
The most used alternatives to cli are exa, Agent Skills Search Server, brave. All are search and web MCP servers with an active GitHub repository, ranked below by GitHub stars and recent activity.
| # | MCP server | What it does | Runs | Updated | Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ref | cli aligndottech | Cross-tool decision memory for AI coding agents: search your decision graph, check changes over MCP. | Local | 2 days ago | 2 |
| 1 | exa exa-labs | Connect AI agents to Exa for web search, content fetching, and multi-step research. | Remote | 2 days ago | 5.1k |
| 2 | Agent Skills Search Server agentskills | Search and discover Agent Skills from the skills.sh registry. Powered by HAPI MCP server. | Remote | 2 months ago | 26k |
| 3 | brave brave | Visit https://brave.com/search/api/ for a free API key. Search the web, local businesses, images,… | Remote | 4 days ago | 1.5k |
| 4 | Atlassian Rovo MCP Server atlassian | Connect to Atlassian Jira, Confluence, Loom, and more to search, create, and manage your work. | Remote | 11 days ago | 1.1k |
| 5 | Zotero MCP 54yyyu | Search, read, annotate, and add to your Zotero research library, local or web. | Local | 5 days ago | 5.5k |
| 6 | Agent-Native Assets BuilderIO | Digital asset manager - upload, organize, search, and generate on-brand images and videos | Remote | 2 days ago | 7.4k |
| 7 | AIHOT KKKKhazix | Chinese AI news: search topics, explore hot events, and read daily, weekly and monthly briefs. | Remote | 2 days ago | 8.1k |
| 8 | OpenMetadata open-metadata | Official OpenMetadata MCP: 21 read and write tools for search, lineage, data quality, governance. | Remote | 2 days ago | 16k |
| 9 | Exa Search pollinations | Search the live web and fetch clean content from source pages. | Remote | 2 days ago | 5.2k |
| 10 | JobSpy speedyapply | Search LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor and regional job boards | Local | 2 days ago | 4.5k |
| 11 | Repomix yamadashy | Pack local or remote codebases into AI-friendly files that LLMs and coding agents can read or search | Local | 3 days ago | 29k |
| 12 | ref-tools-mcp ref-tools | Token-efficient search for coding agents over public and private documentation. | Remote | 20 days ago | 1.2k |
Questions
What is the best alternative to cli?
By usage, exa is the most popular alternative, with 5.1k GitHub stars. The right choice depends on which features and hosting you need.
Is cli still maintained?
Its last commit was 2 days ago. You can see current activity on its listing page.