Host an MCP server or build it yourself
Updated October 30, 2026 · Published October 30, 2026
Build your own MCP server when your tools need logic that no API or document set can express; use a hosted one such as Voozeo MCP when your tools are the routes of an API described in OpenAPI, or documents the AI should search and read.
What building your own involves
An MCP server is more than a list of tools. Before an AI can use yours, you write and run all of this:
- The protocol: the exchange with the AI client, the list of tools and their schemas, the errors.
- The tools: code that turns each tool call into a call to your API, or into a search in your files.
- A public HTTPS address that stays up, with the monitoring and the updates that come with it.
- Access control: a key per server, shown once, stored hashed, revocable.
- The secrets of your API, stored encrypted and never sent to the AI.
- Limits and visibility: a quota, a call log, protection against calls to private addresses.
None of this is hard on its own. Together, it is a small service to maintain, for every server you add.
What Voozeo MCP handles for you
You import an OpenAPI 3 file or your documents, choose the tools to expose and paste the server URL and key into your AI client. The rest is hosted.
| Task | Building your own | With Voozeo MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | You write one per route | Generated from each route of your OpenAPI file |
| Documents | You build the extraction and the search | PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown, text are read, indexed and searched for you |
| Hosting | Your servers and your address | Hosted, nothing to deploy |
| Access | Your own key management | One MCP key per server, regenerated in a click |
| API secret | Your own secret storage | Stored encrypted, write-only, never shown to the AI |
| Visibility | Your own logs | Call log, dashboard and monthly quota |
See OpenAPI to MCP and documents to MCP.
What a hosted server does not do
Voozeo MCP does not run your own code. The tools of a server are the routes of your OpenAPI file and the search over your documents. If you need a tool that computes, combines several systems or applies business rules, the logic has to live behind an API route: Voozeo then exposes that route to the AI.
How to choose
- Do you already have an API with an OpenAPI description? Use a hosted server: every route becomes a tool.
- Do you have procedures, product documents or contracts to consult? Use a hosted server: the AI searches and reads them.
- Do you need a tool that no route and no document can provide? Put that logic behind an API route, then expose the route; or build your own server if the protocol itself has to be customised.
- Not sure? Start hosted. It takes a few minutes, the Free plan costs nothing (Free), and you can build your own later if you hit a real limit.
Start with a hosted server
- Sign up on the Free plan with the "Get started" button, no credit card. See pricing.
- Import your OpenAPI file or your documents and keep the tools you need. See choosing and describing tools.
- Connect your AI client: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code.
- Test a call in the sandbox, then check it in the log.
Go further
- What is MCP explains the protocol in plain words.
- Turn a REST API into an MCP server walks through the first import.
- Secure an AI's access to your API lists the safeguards to set.