---
title: "Google MCP Toolbox vs Postgres MCP Pro for Postgres"
url: "https://mcpshelf.co/compare/mcp-toolbox-for-databases-vs-postgres-mcp-pro"
description: "Google's MCP Toolbox covers many databases and lets you expose fixed queries; Postgres MCP Pro goes deep on tuning Postgres. Which to pick."
updated: "2026-10-27"
site: "MCP Shelf"
---

# MCP Toolbox for Databases vs Postgres MCP Pro

For Postgres alone, Postgres MCP Pro gives the more useful advice: it explains plans and recommends indexes from your workload. Toolbox is the better choice when you have several kinds of database, are on Google Cloud, or want to hand the assistant a short list of approved queries instead of open SQL.

## Side by side

|  | MCP Toolbox for Databases | Postgres MCP Pro |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Made by | Google (googleapis) | Crystal DBA |
| Databases | Postgres, MySQL, BigQuery, Spanner, AlloyDB and more | Postgres only |
| Approved queries only | Yes, define them in tools.yaml | No; restricted mode limits SQL to reads |
| Index advice | Lists indexes, bloat and stats | Recommends new indexes, simulated with hypopg |
| Maker | Google | Crystal DBA |
| Runs as | An npm package or binary | A Docker container |
| Runs on | Your computer | Your computer |
| You need | Node.js 18 or newer; Connection details for your database | Docker; A Postgres connection string |
| GitHub stars | 16.7K | 3.4K |

## Pick MCP Toolbox for Databases if

- You use more than one kind of database
- Your data is in BigQuery, Spanner or AlloyDB
- You want the assistant limited to queries you wrote

## Pick Postgres MCP Pro if

- You run Postgres and want to know why it is slow
- You want a health check covering vacuum, bloat and connections
- You want open SQL, but read-only, for exploring data

## Can you run both?

Running both against one Postgres gives the assistant two execute_sql tools, which invites confusion. Pick one per database, or load Toolbox with a custom tools file and no raw SQL.

Setup for each: [MCP Toolbox for Databases](https://mcpshelf.co/servers/mcp-toolbox-for-databases), [Postgres MCP Pro](https://mcpshelf.co/servers/postgres-mcp-pro).

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From [MCP Shelf](https://mcpshelf.co/): A short shelf of MCP servers that are worth installing. Index for agents: https://mcpshelf.co/llms.txt