Xiaohongshu, Douyin and WeChat MCP servers: self-hosted vs hosted

Claude, Cursor, Doubao Work and WorkBuddy cannot open a Xiaohongshu note, a Douyin video or a WeChat Official Account article on their own. An MCP server gives them the tools. The options fall into three kinds: open-source servers you run yourself, which fetch with your own account or a guest identity; agent toolkits and browser automation; and hosted data servers you connect to with one key. This page starts with what the okdata MCP server does, then compares the three kinds, then shows how each client connects.

The okdata MCP server: one URL, three platforms

okdata is a hosted data MCP at https://api.okdata.online/mcp. You connect with a key in a header and need no Xiaohongshu, Douyin or WeChat account. It has five tools:

• find and describe look up endpoints, parameters and prices. They are free and need no key, so the agent can check before it spends.
• call runs an endpoint at its price, from $0.0001: Xiaohongshu note search $0.02 a page, Xiaohongshu note comments $0.02 a page, Douyin video search $0.02 a page, Douyin video comments $0.002 a page, WeChat article history $0.02 a page and WeChat article detail $0.02 an article.
• read_more reads the rest of a truncated result and account shows your balance; both are free.

It covers 17 platforms and 214 endpoints, including Douyin, Xiaohongshu, WeChat Official Accounts and WeChat Channels. Failed calls are free. Sign-up includes $0.10 of trial credit; top-ups start at USD 10 by card, Alipay or WeChat Pay.

The comparison

Open-source projects and hosted services differ from one to the next, so the rows describe what is typical of each kind, as we checked on 2026-11-12. Client support comes from each client's own docs.

Option	What it reads	Cost	Login or cookie	Risk and upkeep	Suits
okdata (hosted data MCP)	17 platforms, 214 endpoints, including Douyin, Xiaohongshu, WeChat Official Accounts and Channels	Per call: find and describe free, call from $0.0001; $0.10 trial	No platform account, one key	Read-only; failed calls are free	Agents that read public data on all three without managing logins
Other hosted data MCPs	Public data on several platforms; coverage and tool counts vary	Per call; some publish prices, some show them after login	The service's key or OAuth	Rules differ on charging failed calls and empty results	Per-call access to many platforms
Open-source MCP for Xiaohongshu (self-hosted)	Search, note detail, comments, profiles, home feed; some can also post, comment, like and save	Free; your machine	QR login with your own account; some require that the account is not logged in on another web client	Whatever the agent does is done by your account	Running your own Xiaohongshu account through an agent
Open-source MCP for Douyin (self-hosted)	Posts, authors, comments and replies by link or account, watermark-free downloads, transcription; some only parse links and extract transcripts	Free; your machine; transcription may use a paid speech service	Some mint guest identities with a headless browser, no cookie; guests get no Douyin search results or hashtag posts	You run Docker; importing a logged-in cookie shows more but a ban cannot be ruled out; some projects are archived	Reading Douyin by link or account, if you can self-host
Agent toolkits	Installed into CLI agents such as Claude Code and Codex; Xiaohongshu search, note text and comments	Free	Xiaohongshu login, copied from your Chrome into a dedicated browser	Not an MCP server; channels come and go as platforms block reading	CLI-agent users who only need Xiaohongshu
Browser-automation MCPs	Any page your browser can open	Free	Whatever your browser is logged in to	Every step reads the page into context; same account risk	Looking at a few pages now and then

Self-hosted open-source servers

For Xiaohongshu, open-source MCP servers typically run a local HTTP server at an address like http://localhost:port/mcp. Common tools search notes, read a note and its comments (some return only the first few top-level comments by default, with replies on request), view profiles and the home feed, and some also publish notes, comment, reply, like and save. They need a QR login with your own account; some say the same account cannot be logged in on several web clients at once and suggest real-name verification first. They are built for an agent that acts as you, and Xiaohongshu's user agreement forbids taking its videos, posts and user information by "illegal scraping" or "simulated downloads". For logins that keep expiring, see Xiaohongshu MCP QR login keeps expiring.

For Douyin, there are two common shapes. Self-hosted data services run in Docker with a REST API and an MCP endpoint, and read posts, authors, comments and replies, download watermark-free media and transcribe locally. To avoid asking for your cookie, some mint guest identities with a headless browser; Douyin gives guests no search results or hashtag posts, so those are missing, and importing a logged-in cookie shows more but a ban cannot be ruled out. Other projects only handle links: they turn share links from Douyin, Xiaohongshu and similar platforms into metadata, text and timed transcripts, may use a paid speech service, and give at most a small, unpaged comment sample. Some of these projects are archived, so check the repository's status first.

WeChat Official Accounts have no maintained open-source reader. Among the open-source projects we checked, an article exporter stopped maintenance in July 2026 (its README says WeChat closed the upstream interface), an RSS tool that read through a WeChat Reading account is archived, and an agent toolkit removed its WeChat channel in June 2026. The most-starred WeChat MCP we found manages your own account (drafts, media, publishing) with your AppID and AppSecret, and cannot read anyone else's articles. To read other accounts, see WeChat article data APIs compared.

Agent toolkits and browser automation

An agent toolkit is not an MCP server: it is a set of tools you install into a CLI agent by asking the agent to set it up. Xiaohongshu is usually an optional channel for search, note text and comments, and the first use copies your Chrome login into a dedicated browser, so a secondary account is wiser. Some toolkits have already dropped channels for platforms whose pages increasingly block reading. Browser-automation MCP servers can operate any page your browser is logged in to, at the cost of a page snapshot in context at every step; reading a few dozen notes fills the context quickly.

Hosted data MCP servers

A hosted server runs at the service; the client connects to a remote URL with a key in a header. You skip logins and signatures and get all three platforms, and you pay per call for public data only. okdata is one, described above. When you compare services of this kind, check three things:

• Whether the price list is public: some publish it, some show it only after login.
• What gets charged: failures, timeouts and empty results.
• How you connect: one URL for every platform or one per platform, and whether the agent can look up endpoints and prices before it spends.

What okdata does not do

• It cannot post, comment, like or message; it reads public data only.
• It cannot see logged-in-only content such as the Xiaohongshu home feed.
• It has no back-office data for your own account, such as your notes' views or follower sources.

Connecting each client

Client	Where	Self-hosted open-source MCP on your machine	Hosted URL with a header
Claude Code	claude mcp add --transport http name url --header "Authorization: Bearer …"	Yes	Yes
Claude desktop and web	Custom connectors; one on the Free plan	Not as a connector: connectors connect from Anthropic's cloud and cannot reach your localhost	Yes, with request headers
Cursor	mcp.json, url and headers for remote servers	Yes: stdio, SSE and Streamable HTTP	Yes
Doubao Work	Plugins → new custom connector, HTTP or STDIO, custom headers	Yes	Yes
WorkBuddy	Connectors → custom connector, configured like MCP	Yes; its MCP guide shows local servers	Not shown in WorkBuddy's docs; the sister tool CodeBuddy documents http with url and headers

We found no way to add an MCP server in the regular Doubao chat app; Doubao Work is the entry that takes one. Setup for okdata is on the Claude Code, Cursor, Doubao and WorkBuddy pages.

Try it

After you sign up and get a key, add okdata to Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http --scope user okdata https://api.okdata.online/mcp \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer ${OKDATA_API_KEY}'

Then ask: "Search Xiaohongshu for notes about camping gear and read the comments on the three with the most comments." The agent uses find to pick the endpoints and see the prices, then call. Other clients are on the MCP page.

How to choose

• The agent should post or reply on Xiaohongshu as you: a self-hosted Xiaohongshu MCP. Hosted data MCPs are read-only.
• Douyin by link, comments or transcripts, and you can run Docker: a self-hosted Douyin data service. A guest identity cannot search Douyin.
• Only turning Douyin or Xiaohongshu videos into scripts: an open-source link-and-transcript tool.
• Someone else's WeChat Official Account: a hosted data MCP; the open-source readers have stopped.
• All three platforms without logins: a hosted data MCP such as okdata. Compare unit prices, whether failed and empty calls are charged, and whether the price list is public.
• Your own account's analytics: the platform's own tools. No third-party MCP has them.

Questions

Can Claude desktop connect to a Xiaohongshu MCP running on my computer?

Not as a custom connector, because connectors reach servers from Anthropic's cloud and cannot see localhost on your computer. Claude Code, Cursor or Doubao Work on the same machine can use it.

Is there an MCP that reads Xiaohongshu without logging in?

Open-source Xiaohongshu MCP servers and agent toolkits usually need a Xiaohongshu login; link-only open-source tools do not, but they only handle links, with no search or comments. Hosted data MCPs, okdata included, need the service's key, not your Xiaohongshu account.

Which MCP lets AI read WeChat Official Account articles?

As of 2026-11-12 the open-source readers have stopped, so a hosted MCP. With okdata the agent finds the account with account search, lists its history and reads an article with article detail for $0.02.

What does an agent session cost on a hosted MCP?

It depends on the calls. On okdata, finding endpoints and checking prices is free; ten Xiaohongshu note searches come to $0.20. Failed calls are free.

Can I use self-hosted and hosted servers together?

Yes. A client can connect to several MCP servers at once; a common setup is a self-hosted Xiaohongshu MCP for your own account and a hosted MCP for competitor and keyword research.