head to head · open source
cognee vs txtai
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars, 3,448 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. txtai has 13,062 stars, 960 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cognee leads on adoption by 153% (33,012 vs 13,062 stars). cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0; txtai is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cognee has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, txtai 7%. cognee was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, 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 | txtai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 960 |
| 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 txtai if
- You want the txtai 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 txtai 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 txtai
All in one AI framework txtai is an all in one AI framework for semantic search, LLM orchestration and language model workflows. The key component of txtai is an embeddings database, which is a union of vector indexes (sparse and dense), graph networks and relational databases. This foundation enables vector search and/or serves as a powerful knowledge source for large language model (LLM) applications. Build autonomous agents, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) processes, multi model workflows and more. Summary of txtai features: 🔎 Vector search with SQL, object storage, topic modeling, graph analysis and…
read the full txtai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or txtai more popular?
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars and txtai has 13,062. cognee has the larger community by that measure.
Are cognee and txtai free?
Both are open source. cognee is licensed under Apache-2.0 and txtai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cognee and txtai?
cognee is written in Python and txtai 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 txtai?
Choose cognee if you want the larger community (33,012 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose txtai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.