| FMRS | 72 / 100 · B | 79 / 100 · B | 75 / 100 · B |
|---|
| Reliability | 11 / 20 | 12 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
|---|
| Security and permissions | 16 / 20 | 18 / 20 | 16 / 20 |
|---|
| Maintenance | 13 / 20 | 17 / 20 | 14 / 20 |
|---|
| Documentation | 18 / 20 | 17 / 20 | 18 / 20 |
|---|
| Setup experience | 14 / 20 | 15 / 20 | 15 / 20 |
|---|
| Best for | - Developers and data teams who want safe AI access to Couchbase data in mainstream MCP clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, JetBrains IDEs)
- Teams already using Couchbase (Capella or self-managed) who want LLM-assisted querying and analysis
| - Teams already using ClickHouse who want AI assistants to access data directly.
- Scenarios requiring fast, read-only data queries and schema exploration.
| - Drug discovery and computational chemistry researchers
- Bioinformatics teams needing ChEMBL data through AI assistants
- Developers comfortable with Node.js or Docker
|
|---|
| Not for | - Unattended write access to production databases without risk assessment (read-only mode blocks writes by default)
- Users not running Couchbase or without a running cluster
- Those needing official support-portal assistance (community-maintained; GitHub only)
| - Scenarios requiring write access to the database without explicit opt-in.
- Production environments with stringent security requirements that avoid default permission settings.
| - Production settings requiring official ChEMBL support (this is unofficial)
- Users without a Node.js or Docker environment
- General database tasks unrelated to ChEMBL
|
|---|
| Required permissions | - Couchbase connection string plus username/password for basic auth, or client certificate and key paths for mTLS, via environment variables or CLI arguments
- CA root certificate path for TLS with self-signed/untrusted certificates on non-Capella clusters
- Database user needs RBAC permissions to access at least one bucket — RBAC is the authoritative security control
| - Requires read-only access to ClickHouse database (default).
- Optional: write access via CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_WRITE_ACCESS.
- Optional: destructive operations via CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_DROP.
| - Outbound network access to https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chembl/api/data
- Read-only access to public API data; no authentication credentials required
|
|---|
| Risks and side effects | - CB_MCP_READ_ONLY_MODE defaults to true, disabling all writes; when false, the LLM can modify/delete documents, scopes, collections, and indexes
- Disabling tools alone is not sufficient: SQL++ DML can still modify data via run_sql_plus_plus_query; use read-only mode or proper RBAC
- delete_scope/delete_collection permanently destroy data
- The HTTP endpoint is unauthenticated unless OAuth is configured
- LLM outputs may be inaccurate; Couchbase does not review them and users are solely responsible
- The product automatically collects usage/performance data (e.g., product version, IP address); see the Couchbase Privacy Policy
| - If write access is enabled, AI might make unintended modifications.
- If DROP access is enabled, data deletion could occur accidentally.
- Credentials may be exposed via environment variables.
| - Unofficial project with license marked NOASSERTION (README claims MIT); verify licensing yourself
- Data accuracy depends on the ChEMBL REST API and the server's parsing may contain defects
- 30-second request timeouts may constrain large batch queries
- README inconsistency on tool count (22 vs 27) raises documentation reliability concerns
|
|---|
| Supported clients | Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf Editor, VS Code, JetBrains IDEs | Claude Desktop | Claude Desktop |
|---|
| Tools | 33 | 4 | 27 |
|---|