head to head · open source
cognee vs LangWatch
cognee has 33,036 GitHub stars, 3,456 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. LangWatch has 5,011 stars, 425 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cognee leads on adoption by 559% (33,036 vs 5,011 stars). cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0; LangWatch is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. cognee has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, LangWatch 8%. LangWatch was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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
| cognee | LangWatch | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 425 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cognee if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick LangWatch if
- You want the LangWatch feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and LangWatch fits your workflow better
About cognee
Cognee The Open Source AI Memory Platform for Agents Demo . Docs . Learn More · Join Discord · Join r/AIMemory . Community Plugins & Add ons Cognee is the open source AI memory platform that gives AI agents persistent long term memory across sessions. Ingest data in any format, build a self hosted knowledge graph, and let every agent recall, connect, and act with full context 🌐 This README is also available in: Deutsch Español Français 日本語 한국어 Português Русский 中文 📄 Read the research paper: Optimizing the Interface Between Knowledge Graphs and LLMs for Complex Reasoning — Markovic et al., 2025 When to use…
read the full cognee overview →
About LangWatch
Website · Docs · Discord · Self hosting Why LangWatch? The platform for LLM evaluations and AI agent testing. We help teams test, simulate, evaluate, and monitor LLM powered agents end to end — before release and in production. Built for teams that need regression testing, simulations, and production observability without building custom tooling. End to end agent simulations Run realistic scenarios against your full stack (tools, state, user simulator, judge) and pinpoint where your agents break, and why? down to each decision. Eval + observability + prompts in one loop Trace → dataset → evaluate → optimize…
read the full LangWatch overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or LangWatch more popular?
cognee has 33,036 GitHub stars and LangWatch has 5,011. cognee has the larger community by that measure.
Are cognee and LangWatch free?
Both are open source. cognee is licensed under Apache-2.0 and LangWatch under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cognee and LangWatch?
cognee is written in Python and LangWatch 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, cognee or LangWatch?
Choose cognee if you want the larger community (33,036 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose LangWatch if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.