Unpaywall MCP Server

by smaboundless Your server? Claim it

local only

Unpaywall runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 55 installs a week from pypi. Last commit 4 Jul 2026.

Open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles via the Unpaywall API

Installs per day peak 20 · avg 12 · -41% w/w

a month agotoday

Installs / week

pypi · unpaywall-mcp-server

Stars

0 open issues

4 Jul 2026

Last commit

0 releases in 90 days

MIT

License

Python

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check Unpaywall every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add unpaywall -- uvx unpaywall-mcp-server

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unpaywall": {
      "args": [
        "unpaywall-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.unpaywall]
command = "uvx"
args = ["unpaywall-mcp-server"]

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unpaywall": {
      "args": [
        "unpaywall-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "unpaywall": {
      "args": [
        "unpaywall-mcp-server"
      ],
      "command": "uvx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: UNPAYWALL_EMAIL (Your email address — required by the Unpaywall API as an identifier (no API key needed). See https://unpaywall.org/products/api). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

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Unpaywall — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for Unpaywall?

Unpaywall runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the pypi package unpaywall-mcp-server was installed 55 times last week.

How do I connect Unpaywall?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls unpaywall-mcp-server straight from pypi; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.

How many people use Unpaywall?

The pypi package unpaywall-mcp-server was installed 55 times in the last week. Week over week that is -41%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.

Is Unpaywall open source?

Yes — it is published under the MIT licence, written in Python and 0 stars on GitHub. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.