mobile-mcp

Free (Open Source)

• Apache 2.0 MCP server, installed with a single npm command
• Native accessibility APIs for tapping, reading screen content, screenshots and navigation
• Works with iOS simulators, Android emulators and real devices attached to your machine
• No account, no auth token, no usage cap on locally attached devices
• Requires Node.js 22+, plus Xcode for iOS or the Android SDK

Paid

• Mobile Next Cloud for real-device infrastructure: start a session over the API, connect via MCP or the CLI, and pay per device-minute. Free to try; per-minute rates are published on their pricing page rather than here
• Note the licensing split: mobile-mcp and Mobilewright are Apache 2.0, but Mobile CLI ships under the Functional Source License, which is source-available rather than open source

Self-Hosted Costs

$0 to run the server. The real cost is device coverage. Simulators and emulators are free but do not catch hardware-specific bugs; a physical device farm means buying and maintaining handsets, which is exactly the problem the paid cloud sells against.

When to Pay

Pay for the cloud when you need real devices you do not own, across OS versions and form factors, and per-device-minute billing beats buying and racking handsets. For local development against a simulator or the phone on your desk, the free server is the whole product.