head to head · open source
cognee vs dagster
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars, 3,448 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dagster has 16,364 stars, 2,395 forks, 2,589 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. cognee leads on adoption by 102% (33,012 vs 16,364 stars). cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0; dagster is written in Python under Apache-2.0. cognee has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, dagster 15%. 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 | dagster | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 dagster if
- You want the dagster 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 dagster 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 dagster
Dagster is a cloud native data pipeline orchestrator for the whole development lifecycle, with integrated lineage and observability, a declarative programming model, and best in class testability. It is designed for developing and maintaining data assets , such as tables, data sets, machine learning models, and reports. With Dagster, you declare—as Python functions—the data assets that you want to build. Dagster then helps you run your functions at the right time and keep your assets up to date. Here is an example of a graph of three assets defined in Python: The graph loaded into Dagster's web UI: Dagster is…
read the full dagster overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cognee or dagster more popular?
cognee has 33,012 GitHub stars and dagster has 16,364. cognee has the larger community by that measure.
Are cognee and dagster free?
Both are open source. cognee is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dagster under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cognee and dagster?
cognee is written in Python and dagster 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 dagster?
Choose cognee if you want the larger community (33,012 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dagster if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.