head to head · open source
cognee vs openlake
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars, 3,448 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. openlake has 2,645 stars, 420 forks, 138 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cognee leads on adoption by 1,148% (33,012 vs 2,645 stars). cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0; openlake is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. cognee has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, openlake 16%. cognee 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
| cognee | openlake | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 420 |
| 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 openlake if
- You want the openlake 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 openlake 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 openlake
Fast, easy and efficient storage for LLM Inference and Training 🔥 Distributed storage for GPU workloads. Built on Rust on io uring , OpenLake is a state of the art storage engine delivering million+ iops within 1ms. Updates [2026/09] 🔥 OpenLake tops the MLPerf Storage v3.0 2026 object checkpointing, leading NVIDIA and Nebius (blog). [2026/08] ExANS : a lossless GPU codec for BF16 KV cache: 1.51× cost savings, now available in OpenLake v0.8 (blog). [2026/07] Breaking the KV Wall: managing 100 TB of KV cache and 8× inference throughput with deferred materialization (blog). Older updates [2026/07] Introducing…
read the full openlake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or openlake more popular?
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars and openlake has 2,645. cognee has the larger community by that measure.
Are cognee and openlake free?
Both are open source. cognee is licensed under Apache-2.0 and openlake under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cognee and openlake?
cognee is written in Python and openlake 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, cognee or openlake?
Choose cognee if you want the larger community (33,012 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose openlake if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.