head to head · open source
claude-mem vs outlines
claude-mem has 94,125 GitHub stars, 8,305 forks, 186 open issues and last shipped yesterday. outlines has 15,825 stars, 880 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. claude-mem leads on adoption by 495% (94,125 vs 15,825 stars). claude-mem is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; outlines is written in Python under Apache-2.0. claude-mem has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, outlines 6%. claude-mem was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| claude-mem | outlines | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 94K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 880 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick claude-mem if
- You weight community size — 94K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick outlines if
- You want the outlines feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and outlines fits your workflow better
About claude-mem
claude mem is an Apache 2.0 TypeScript memory layer for AI coding agents that captures what an agent did during a session, compresses it with AI, and injects the relevant parts back into future sessions, built for developers running Claude Code, OpenClaw, Codex, Gemini, Hermes, Copilot, OpenCode and similar tools.
read the full claude-mem overview →
About outlines
Outlines is a Python library for structured generation with large language models, released under the Apache 2.0 license and maintained by the team at .txt. It lives in the AI and machine learning ecosystem, specifically among AI development platforms and structured generation tooling, and it is distributed through PyPI. The project describes itself as a way to guarantee structured outputs during generation rather than repairing them afterward, and its topic list places it alongside work on context free grammars, regular expressions, JSON, prompt engineering, and symbolic AI.
read the full outlines overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is claude-mem or outlines more popular?
claude-mem has 94,125 GitHub stars and outlines has 15,825. claude-mem has the larger community by that measure.
Are claude-mem and outlines free?
Both are open source. claude-mem is licensed under Apache-2.0 and outlines under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between claude-mem and outlines?
claude-mem is written in TypeScript and outlines in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, claude-mem or outlines?
Choose claude-mem if you want the larger community (94,125 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose outlines if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.