head to head · open source
codebase-memory-mcp vs herdr
codebase-memory-mcp has 43,844 GitHub stars, 3,573 forks, 597 open issues and last shipped today. herdr has 39,695 stars, 2,992 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped today. codebase-memory-mcp leads on adoption by 10% (43,844 vs 39,695 stars). codebase-memory-mcp is written in C under MIT; herdr is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. codebase-memory-mcp has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, herdr 8%. codebase-memory-mcp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (claude-code, codex, developer-tools), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| codebase-memory-mcp | herdr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 44K | ★ 40K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick codebase-memory-mcp if
- You weight community size — 44K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick herdr if
- You want the herdr feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and herdr fits your workflow better
About codebase-memory-mcp
codebase memory mcp is a high performance code intelligence MCP server, written in C, that indexes a codebase into a persistent knowledge graph so AI coding agents can answer structural questions in under a millisecond, and it is built for developers and teams who run agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, aider, or Kilo Code against large repositories.
read the full codebase-memory-mcp overview →
About herdr
herdr is a terminal first runtime for coding agents — a single Rust binary that owns the terminals in which tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode and Grok run, aimed at developers who keep agents working across local and remote machines and want those sessions to survive a lost SSH connection or a closed client.
read the full herdr overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is codebase-memory-mcp or herdr more popular?
codebase-memory-mcp has 43,844 GitHub stars and herdr has 39,695. codebase-memory-mcp has the larger community by that measure.
Are codebase-memory-mcp and herdr free?
Both are open source. codebase-memory-mcp is licensed under MIT and herdr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between codebase-memory-mcp and herdr?
codebase-memory-mcp is written in C and herdr in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, codebase-memory-mcp or herdr?
Choose codebase-memory-mcp if you want the larger community (43,844 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose herdr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.