head to head · open source
cognee vs mcp-memory-service
cognee has 33,036 GitHub stars, 3,456 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mcp-memory-service has 2,073 stars, 386 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cognee leads on adoption by 1,494% (33,036 vs 2,073 stars). cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0; mcp-memory-service is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cognee has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mcp-memory-service 19%. mcp-memory-service was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agent-memory, ai-agents), 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 | mcp-memory-service | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 386 |
| 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 mcp-memory-service if
- You want the mcp-memory-service 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 mcp-memory-service 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 mcp-memory-service
This repository has moved to GitHub Active development, issues, pull requests, CI and releases are at as of 5 September 2026. This copy stays here, readable and unchanged, so that existing links, issue numbers and pull request references keep resolving. It receives no further pushes and its CI no longer runs. Please do not open issues or pull requests here, they will not be seen. The wiki moved too: mcp memory service Persistent Shared Memory for AI Agent Pipelines Open source memory backend for AI agents — REST API, MCP, OAuth, CLI, dashboard . One self hosted service, every transport. Agents store decisions…
read the full mcp-memory-service overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or mcp-memory-service more popular?
cognee has 33,036 GitHub stars and mcp-memory-service has 2,073. cognee has the larger community by that measure.
Are cognee and mcp-memory-service free?
Both are open source. cognee is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mcp-memory-service under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cognee and mcp-memory-service?
cognee is written in Python and mcp-memory-service 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, cognee or mcp-memory-service?
Choose cognee if you want the larger community (33,036 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mcp-memory-service if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.