Val Town vs Boat House
Val Town is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by val-town. Marketplaces we read that list it: 2 (Claude Code: claude-plugins-official, Claude: knowledge-work-plugins). Boat House is an MCP server published by boathousecloud.com. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Official MCP Registry). As of our marketplace pass on 2026-10-14. This pair was picked by a reader, not by our comparison rule, so search engines are asked not to index the page.
Where each is published
| Marketplace |  Val Town |  Boat House |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-official | Listed Version: 0.4.0 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 10 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Claude: knowledge-work-plugins | Listed Version: 0.4.0 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 10 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Official MCP Registry | Not listed | Listed Version: 1.0.0 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 1 Not marked · First seen |
Each figure is the marketplace's own and is never added up across marketplaces. A marketplace that publishes no figure shows none: no number is not zero.
The facts side by side
| Fact | Val Town | Boat House |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplaces that list it (differs) | 2 (better) | 1 (worse) |
| Stars (GitHub) (differs) | 10 (better) | 1 (worse) |
| Forks (GitHub) | 0 | 0 |
| Last release | Not published | Not published |
| Where it runs (differs) | Remote server (api.val.town/v3/mcp) | Remote server (mcp.boathousecloud.com/mcp) |
| Transport | Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP |
| Tools it declares | Not published | Not published |
| Environment variables it asks for | Not published | Not published |
| Parts of the bundle (differs) | 12 | Not a bundle |
| Licence (differs) | MIT | Not stated |
| Repository (differs) | github.com/val-town/plugins | github.com/allenzhangyiteng/boathouse-cloud |
| Changes in the last 7 days | 0 | 0 |
| First seen | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
| Endpoint at the last check (differs) | not checked yet | Responded 5 h ago |
Lines where the two differ have a tinted background and bold values. Where the data itself says which value is better (more marketplaces, a larger figure of the same marketplace, a fresher release, a verified mark on a marketplace that lists both), the better one is also marked green with ▲ and the worse one red with ▼. Where it runs, the transport, the tools, the settings, hooks, the bundle's parts, the licence and the week's changes are marked only as different: more or fewer is not better in itself.
What each says it does
Val Town
Build and deploy on Val Town. Bundles the Val Town MCP server and platform skills (HTTP vals, cron/intervals, SQLite, email, OAuth, React UI, third-party integrations, templates).
Boat House
Deploy and share small apps with team login, persistent data, versioned updates and domains.
How to run each
Val Town As a Claude Code plugin
/plugin install valtown@claude-plugins-officialBoat House As a remote MCP server
claude mcp add --transport http boathouse https://mcp.boathousecloud.com/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_TOKEN>"Requires: Authorization header
Commands built only from what the marketplaces declare; the full set for every client is on each card.
Only Boat House has a remote endpoint we check. How we check endpoints
Tools each declares
Neither one's marketplaces publish a list of tools, so there is nothing to compare.
Settings each asks for
Neither one's marketplaces publish the settings it asks for.
What it can do: Val Town · What it can do: Boat House · Compare two other plugins
Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/blob/HEAD/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json. Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/blob/HEAD/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json. Data comes from the Official MCP Registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io), CC0 1.0. Figures come from our own regular passes over the marketplaces, last read on . We publish no contact details for plugin publishers.