head to head · open source
PageIndex vs cognee
PageIndex has 35,678 GitHub stars, 3,148 forks, 103 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cognee has 30,780 stars, 3,050 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PageIndex leads on adoption by 16% (35,678 vs 30,780 stars). PageIndex is written in Python under MIT; cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0. PageIndex has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, cognee 10%. cognee was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai, ai-agents, context-engineering), 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
| PageIndex | cognee | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 31K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick PageIndex if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cognee if
- You want the cognee 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 cognee fits your workflow better
About PageIndex
PageIndex is a vectorless, reasoning based retrieval augmented generation engine written in Python and released under the MIT license. It lives in the AI and machine learning infrastructure ecosystem, with topics spanning RAG, information retrieval, LLM reasoning, context engineering, and agentic AI. Instead of building a vector index, PageIndex generates a hierarchical tree index for each document and then lets a large language model reason its way through that tree, in the same way a human expert turns to the right section of a long report. The project ships as a Python SDK, a hosted cloud service, and a docume…
read the full PageIndex overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is PageIndex or cognee more popular?
PageIndex has 35,678 GitHub stars and cognee has 30,780. PageIndex has the larger community by that measure.
Are PageIndex and cognee free?
Both are open source. PageIndex is licensed under MIT and cognee under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between PageIndex and cognee?
PageIndex is written in Python and cognee 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, PageIndex or cognee?
Choose PageIndex if you want the larger community (35,678 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cognee if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.