MCP and AI basics
Local MCP server
An MCP server you run on your own machine or infrastructure. You control where it runs and which credentials it holds, but you maintain it.
A local MCP server runs on your own computer or infrastructure. You install it, give it credentials and start it, usually through the stdio transport from a desktop or terminal client. The directory marks these as 'Local (you run it)'.
The two Google servers are the main e-commerce examples: Google Ads and Google Analytics both publish open-source servers that need a Google Cloud project and OAuth or service-account credentials on the machine that runs them. Community servers for store platforms are also mostly local.
Local servers suit teams with a technical person who wants to see exactly what runs and to keep credentials off third-party infrastructure. They are harder for non-technical users, cannot be used from a browser-only assistant without extra hosting, and need updating like any other software. When a vendor offers both, hosted is the simpler start.
Before running one, decide where it will live and who can reach that machine. A shared agency laptop with a Google Ads credential on it is a different risk from a locked-down workstation, and the installation guides in the directory say which credentials each local server stores.