head to head · open source
cognee vs openlake
cognee has 30,780 GitHub stars, 3,050 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. openlake has 2,662 stars, 424 forks, 138 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. cognee leads on adoption by 1,056% (30,780 vs 2,662 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 | ★ 31K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 424 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cognee if
- You weight community size — 31K 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 is an open source AI memory platform for agents, released under the Apache 2.0 license and written in Python. It ingests data in any format and builds a self hosted knowledge graph that agents query to recall, connect, and act with full context across sessions. The project lives in the Python ecosystem, installs through standard package managers, and sits in the AI and machine learning infrastructure category alongside graph databases and context engineering tooling. A companion research paper, "Optimizing the Interface Between Knowledge Graphs and LLMs for Complex Reasoning" by Markovic et al., 2025, docu…
read the full cognee overview →
About openlake
OpenLake is a Rust storage engine for AI and machine learning infrastructure, aimed at LLM inference and GPU training. It provides distributed storage for GPU workloads and uses io uring to keep accelerators fed during serving and training.
read the full openlake overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or openlake more popular?
cognee has 30,780 GitHub stars and openlake has 2,662. 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 (30,780 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.