head to head · open source
codebase-memory-mcp vs rea
codebase-memory-mcp has 46,158 GitHub stars, 3,797 forks, 623 open issues and last shipped today. rea has 29,472 stars, 3,500 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped today. codebase-memory-mcp leads on adoption by 57% (46,158 vs 29,472 stars). codebase-memory-mcp is written in C under MIT; rea is written in TypeScript under MIT. codebase-memory-mcp has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, rea 12%. rea was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (claude-code, codex, developer-tools), 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
| codebase-memory-mcp | rea | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick codebase-memory-mcp if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rea if
- You want the rea feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and rea fits your workflow better
About codebase-memory-mcp
codebase memory mcp is a high performance code intelligence MCP server, written in C, that indexes a codebase into a persistent knowledge graph so AI coding agents can answer structural questions in under a millisecond, and it is built for developers and teams who run agents such as Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, aider, or Kilo Code against large repositories.
read the full codebase-memory-mcp overview →
About rea
REA is an open source MCP server and CLI that lets AI coding agents — and your terminal — reverse engineer native binaries, JavaScript and Electron apps, .NET assemblies, and websites, with evidence attached to every conclusion.
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Frequently asked questions
Is codebase-memory-mcp or rea more popular?
codebase-memory-mcp has 46,158 GitHub stars and rea has 29,472. codebase-memory-mcp has the larger community by that measure.
Are codebase-memory-mcp and rea free?
Both are open source. codebase-memory-mcp is licensed under MIT and rea under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between codebase-memory-mcp and rea?
codebase-memory-mcp is written in C and rea in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, codebase-memory-mcp or rea?
Choose codebase-memory-mcp if you want the larger community (46,158 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rea if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.