MCP Adoption: Model Context Protocol SDK Downloads
The MCP SDK is the most downloaded AI package on npm in our set, 1.3× the OpenAI SDK. A protocol spreads through other people's products.
The signal
- npm@modelcontextprotocol/sdk passed 50 million weekly downloads for the first time in the week of 27 Jul 2026 (53.3M).
- PyPIOn PyPI, the mcp package had 80 downloads for every 100 of openai in the 7 days to 19 Sep (54.1M vs 67.7M), all after the 25 Aug counting change.
- npmIn the week of 6 Oct 2025 the MCP SDK was already level with the OpenAI SDK: 7.6M vs 7.3M.
The MCP SDK had 52.3M npm downloads in the week of 24 Aug, 1.3× the OpenAI SDK and more than any of the 12 other AI packages we track.
npm downloads in the week of 24 Aug 2026 – 30 Aug (Monday–Sunday), 13 AI developer packages.
Downloads count installs, including CI and every package that depends on these SDKs; the MCP SDK is pulled in by many agents, editors and servers, which is the point of this chart, not a flaw in it. It is the latest week with no npm gap day (the API returns 0 on some days) for all 13 packages. PyPI changed how it counts on 25 Aug 2026, so the PyPI ratio uses only 13 Sep–19 Sep, after the change.
Show the data (13 rows)
| Package | Week of 6 Oct 2025 | Week of 24 Aug 2026 | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| @modelcontextprotocol/sdk | 7.6M | 52.3M | 6.9× |
| openai | 7.3M | 39.7M | 5.5× |
| @anthropic-ai/sdk | 2.5M | 38.7M | 15.5× |
| ai | 3.6M | 23.6M | 6.5× |
| @google/genai | 1.9M | 23.4M | 12.2× |
| @ai-sdk/anthropic | 1.0M | 11.9M | 11.5× |
| @ai-sdk/openai | 1.7M | 11.9M | 7.0× |
| @mistralai/mistralai | 0.3M | 8.4M | 27.6× |
| @langchain/core | 1.8M | 5.7M | 3.2× |
| langchain | 1.2M | 3.0M | 2.6× |
| @openai/agents | 0.1M | 1.6M | 15.0× |
| groq-sdk | 0.4M | 0.9M | 2.3× |
| ollama | 0.3M | 0.7M | 2.1× |
The Mode read
The Model Context Protocol is how an AI agent connects to a tool or a data source. Its SDK first passed 50 million weekly npm downloads in the week of 27 Jul. The model SDKs get the attention. How does a protocol compare with them?
It is bigger than all of them. In the week of 24 Aug the MCP SDK had 52.3M downloads, 1.3× the next biggest, the OpenAI SDK (39.7M). In the week of 6 Oct 2025 the two were level (1.05×); since then MCP grew 6.9×. Python tells the same story in a different ratio: after PyPI's counting change, mcp had 80 downloads for every 100 of openai.
A protocol SDK does not need a sales team. Every agent, editor and server that speaks MCP installs it, so it rides on other companies' distribution. For founders, the lesson is to be on the other end of that protocol: the default MCP server for a system of record gets called by every agent that needs that system, whichever model sits behind it.
The widest distribution is being a dependency of everyone else.
What we would back: Companies that become the default MCP server for a system of record agents cannot avoid.