Skills vs MCP Servers: The $285 Billion Architecture Decision

Skills vs MCP Servers: When to Pick Which

TLDR: Skills are plain-text instruction sets that teach AI agents how to work, while MCP servers are small programs that give AI agents access to external systems and data. The real power comes from combining both, and the author demonstrates this with a cold outreach system built on Claude Code that replaces what used to require expensive SaaS subscriptions.

Skills vs MCP servers: when to pick which