Launch HN: Manufact (YC S25) – MCP Cloud

71 points - today at 3:11 PM


Hi HN, we are Pietro and Luigi, cofounders of Manufact (https://manufact.com), a cloud for MCP apps and servers. We used to be called mcp-use, and still build open source SDKs for MCP under that name: https://github.com/mcp-use/mcp-use. We did a Show HN about that last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44747229.

Today we want to tell you about our cloud product, Manufact, which is to mcp-use as Vercel is to Next.js. Manufact is an MCP vertical cloud designed for dev teams putting MCP Apps and servers in production.You can ship, iterate on, test and monitor your MCPs, and get them ready for the store submissions. All with the best developer and agent experience in mind.

Here is a demo video of the product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2rbr5OT9LI.

We have been working on MCP since April 2025. Our first focus was making it easy to build agents that could use any MCP server, and a lot of people started using our SDKs. Then the harness revolution kicked off: Claude Code, Claude Cowork, ChatGPT, Codex, OpenCode started shipping agent harnesses that made most standalone agent frameworks redundant. That pushed us to the other side of the connection, the servers. If agents were going to consolidate into a few harnesses, then first-class integration with the rest of a company's systems (i.e. MCP) would become the thing that mattered, so we started building up our server SDKs.

Then in succession:

1. Oct 2025. ChatGPT Apps SDK. OpenAI brings app UIs to ChatGPT, built on top of MCP and the work of mcp-ui. 2. Late 2025. The stores open. ChatGPT starts accepting app submissions, Claude grows its connector directory with selected partners. 3. Jan 2026. MCP Apps becomes official. SEP-1865 merges as the first MCP extension (io.modelcontextprotocol/ui): one UI standard any host can render.

Today, all the major clients fully support MCP and are opening marketplaces of reviewed MCPs that can be one click installed. All major tech companies have an MCP server, and many of those are reporting that already 15+% of their usage comes from their MCP, and we start to have a good way to distribute them just now.

MCP can return fully interactive UIs. So companies can (1) display data in more meaningful ways to their users (e.g. analytics, ecommerce) and (2) display their branding in some of the most used products on the planet (ChatGPT, Claude etc). Numbers: an engineer at Amplitude reported that their MCP saw a 2x increase in retention after adding UI to their MCP.

Clients (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) are starting to dynamically present MCP servers/apps to users, based on their intent. Products will be organically discovered on the chats!

We feel that MCP is reaching its maturity moment. Now that MCPs are starting to be easy to install and discover, there is going to be a huge incentive for users to use them and for companies to create them:

1 - Most work is already done from AI chats, this is not going to stop, MCP gives you a way to interact with products without manually using their dashboards.

2 - MCP allows you to bring the context together in one place: you can read an email, create a ticket while plugged into the source code of your product, or your knowledge base. Aggregation of products that was not possible before, will happen in the chat, orchestrated by increasingly intelligent models.

If AI apps (Codex, Claude Desktop) are the new browsers, as PG said in a recent tweet https://x.com/paulg/status/2069080429236191504, then MCPs are the new websites.

But there is a catch:

- Submission process on the stores is still quite tricky, manual and takes up valuable time. - Hardly anybody knows how to design a good MCP: most of them are 1:1 proxies of the API and are abandoned, since being one shotted a few months ago. - The MCP Spec advances quickly and it is not easy to keep track of the changes, and what they mean for your server. - Auth is still a mystery for most teams (API key in the URL ???). - Most companies are not even aware that MCPs can return interactive UIs. - Clients still have to consolidate behavior, some do dynamic tool discovery, some don't, some persist authentication properly some don't.

We built Manufact and mcp-use to solve these problems. Our SDKs help them build good MCPs, our inspector helps them test locally, and our cloud helps them ship/publish and monitor them in production.

To deploy on Manufact you just need to connect a Github app, pick the repo, we'll detect the framework you are working with and get you a live MCP url as soon as possible.

In our platform, that live URL will be used to give you a chat where you can try/debug your MCP immediately and share it with your team. If you push an update on a new experimental branch, you'll be able to test that as well thanks to preview deployments.

Once your server is ready to go live, we help you make sure that it does not break. You can configure automated tests that will take your MCP server, install it in ChatGPT and Claude and test it. We do not test the model, we test the client (model + harness). This way you reliably know if your server breaks where people use it.

Since publishing on the store is a major distribution unlock for companies (your MCP can be dynamically discovered and one click installed across Claude products, and ChatGPT), we collected a set of requirements that will keep your submission from being rejected. You check this locally before going through the actual review process.

Once your server is live, you'll want to understand how it is used. Our analytics are designed for MCP, so you'll know how many users are hitting your MCP, how many tool calls you receive, from which client.

You can try out https://manufact.com for free today. We have usage-based pricing and on our free account we give free credits for you to try it out. If you have an MCP already, just connect your Github repo and deploy, if not you can build one using our skill and SDKs pretty simply (we will guide you in the onboarding).

We would love to hear feedback about the product in the comments, and hear thoughts from everyone about MCP. Thanks! :)

Source

Comments

Brainspackle today at 4:55 PM
Having to sign up to browse available MCPs stopped me dead in my tracks and made me close the tab. I won't be the only one. Perhaps consider allowing people to browse more of the site before you try to force a signup on them?
saberience today at 6:28 PM
An MCP is a protocol, that's all.

Saying MCPs are the new websites is like saying "SOAP" is the new websites, or "REST" is the new websites.

MCP is basically the AI equivalent of a REST API, it's not a product anymore than JSON is a product or XML is a product.

msencenb today at 4:06 PM
I am really impressed with your demo video, particularly the analytics, logs, and test suite features.

I'm a target customer where I have a few curious customers, but I'm not fully ready to roll it out yet across the customer base. One thing that's stopping me, what does credits mean on your pricing page? And what is the pay as you go price after you hit your limit? I would need to be able to budget this before I deploy.

The second piece - we already have a CLI, which is great for terminal based agents and what we will continue to recommend. What we really want, and I think is what you are offering, is basically an easier way to deploy a 'remote connector' to use Claude lingo so that normal users with the claude/chatgpt app can just use our MCP. Can you point me to guidelines or the right place in your open source templates to understand how I would best handle auth (or the tradeoffs in each) during the initial build phase of the MCP server?

rgbrgb today at 3:53 PM
This is cool. I was skeptical of MCP's until I made one recently. They're essentially the exact same as 1) giving your agent a CLI tool or REST API and 2) pointing it there in an AGENT.md/CLAUDE.md. Agents are great at using built-for-human CLI tools and IMO they don't need anything purpose-built for agents. The key difference, which ends up being a usability win for non-technical users, is that the MCP bundles 1 and 2 - harnesses inject the MCP tool descriptions on every session after install. Of course, that's also why you need to be careful about context bloat when using/building them
pacman1337 today at 3:56 PM
stopped using mcp and mostly using skills now. can't understand what this product does or how it could help me.
elliotgarreffa today at 4:42 PM
Love it guys! Also working deep in the MCP space we’ve used manufact right since the start. Great product, team and new release! Congrats
Getchowned today at 5:37 PM
Very interesting, will keep you in mind.
ayushrodrigues today at 3:55 PM
we have so many problems with MCP related to auth, scopes etc... how do you guys help solve that?
mmarcelline today at 4:56 PM
Looks great, congrats Pietro & Luigi!
abewheeler today at 4:39 PM
Looks great! Congratulations on the launch, guys!
connerBown today at 3:52 PM
MCP is something people think of as a "panacea" to all AI issues. I think people are beginning to realize it is just one, albeit important, part of a successful AI architecture.
maxalbarello today at 4:04 PM
congrats guys! how does the automated testing using ChatGPT/Claude clients work?
oliviajuwono today at 3:37 PM
Huge congrats to the team on the official launch of Manufact!
sampton today at 3:29 PM
MCP is a deadend. CLI use is the future.
sebastiancrossa today at 4:33 PM
we've been using manufact for months now. couldn't build mcps another way.
zxela today at 5:30 PM
On your website under "Thousands of dev-teams are building with mcp-use" you include a quote from your CTO (@enri). If thousands of teams are using the product, I would think you could omit this post.

I think you have a really neat product here, but these types of testimonials do you more harm than good; they sour my opinion of all other testimonials on your site. I shouldn't have to play detective.

jsmudda today at 3:44 PM
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