head to head · open source
vllm vs cognee
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars, 24,317 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cognee has 33,012 stars, 3,448 forks, 495 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 191% (96,158 vs 33,012 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; cognee is written in Python under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, cognee 10%. vllm 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
| vllm | cognee | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 33K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vllm if
- You weight community size — 96K 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 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 vllm
Easy, fast, and cheap LLM serving for everyone 🔥 We have built a vLLM website to help you get started with vLLM. Please visit vllm.ai to learn more. For events, please visit vllm.ai/events to join us. About vLLM is a fast and easy to use library for LLM inference and serving. Originally developed in the Sky Computing Lab at UC Berkeley, vLLM has grown into one of the most active open source AI projects built and maintained by a diverse community of many dozens of academic institutions and companies from over 2000 contributors. vLLM is fast with: State of the art serving throughput Efficient management of…
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or cognee more popular?
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars and cognee has 33,012. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and cognee free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cognee under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and cognee?
vllm 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, vllm or cognee?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (96,158 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cognee if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.