head to head · open source
codebase-memory-mcp vs mex
codebase-memory-mcp has 44,847 GitHub stars, 3,664 forks, 612 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mex has 1,719 stars, 132 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. codebase-memory-mcp leads on adoption by 2,509% (44,847 vs 1,719 stars). codebase-memory-mcp is written in C under MIT; mex is written in TypeScript under MIT. codebase-memory-mcp has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, mex 8%. mex was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (claude-code, codex, cursor, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| codebase-memory-mcp | mex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.7K | ⑂ 132 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick codebase-memory-mcp if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mex if
- You want the mex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mex 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 mex
MEX is an MIT licensed, TypeScript based tool that gives engineering teams and their coding agents a shared project memory kept as readable Markdown inside the repository and shared through ordinary Git commits, pushes, and pulls.
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Frameworks & Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Frameworks & Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is codebase-memory-mcp or mex more popular?
codebase-memory-mcp has 44,847 GitHub stars and mex has 1,719. codebase-memory-mcp has the larger community by that measure.
Are codebase-memory-mcp and mex free?
Both are open source. codebase-memory-mcp is licensed under MIT and mex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between codebase-memory-mcp and mex?
codebase-memory-mcp is written in C and mex in TypeScript. 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 mex?
Choose codebase-memory-mcp if you want the larger community (44,847 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.