# Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Basic Memory

> Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory scores 79.7 (A) to Basic Memory's 76.9 (BB) for agent memory. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-11-07

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory scores 79.7 (A) on agent readiness against Basic Memory's 76.9 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Basic Memory leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do agent memory.

- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory: grade A, 79.7/100, rank #17 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcore-memory.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcore-memory.json
- Basic Memory: grade BB, 76.9/100, rank #38 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/basic-memory.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/basic-memory.json
- Best memory layers for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-memory/index.md
- All 353 memory comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-memory/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory (A)

Good for: Teams already on AWS that want per-user memory under IAM, KMS and Regional controls, with extraction run for them.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 88 against 83
- Security & auth, 87 against 61

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Long-term extraction is asynchronous. The docs say records appear within seconds to minutes after a write

### Basic Memory (BB)

Good for: Memory for coding agents and assistants kept as Markdown the user owns, with search and a graph.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 91 against 83

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: 1.0 removed every pre-1.0 tool and command with no aliases, so older agent instructions and allowlists break


## Why the edge

### Security & auth: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +26

- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory (87): IAM with SigV4, roles and short-lived credentials, resource-based policies on the memory resource, and OAuth (JWT) for end users through an AgentCore Gateway (30). Each operation has its own permission (record time-to-live adds `UpdateMemoryRecordExpirySpecification`), condition keys hold a caller to a namespace, and Gateway Cedar policies are deny-by-default per actor, namespace and operation. The three batch operations are outside those policies, and deletes are permanent with no confirmation step (17 of 20). The guide names memory poisoning and prompt injection, places prevention with the customer, and recommends Bedrock Guardrails on input before `CreateEvent` and adversarial testing. The MCP server README says retrieved records are untrusted input (12 of 15). CloudWatch metrics and optional vended logs for extraction. The data protection page recommends CloudTrail in general terms, and we found no Memory-specific CloudTrail page such as Gateway and Registry have (10 of 15). A vulnerability disclosure programme on HackerOne, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore in SOC scope on AWS's list updated 11 August 2026, and public security bulletins, including two High advisories in 2026 for the SDK's Code Interpreter client (not Memory) published as GitHub advisories with AWS bulletins. aws.amazon.com/.well-known/security.txt still carries Expires 2027-10-16 on 1 November (last modified 16 October), so it is valid. The disclosure policy at vdp.aws.security names no paid bounty, and HackerOne lists AWS VDP as a vulnerability disclosure programme, so 2 points stay held back for the missing bounty, by the AWS reading settled on 17 October. (18 of 20). 30+17+12+10+18 = 87.
- Basic Memory (61): Local stdio server with no credential, and cloud OAuth 2.1 through WorkOS with read-only or project-scoped keys on Pro (22 of 30). Paths are validated against the project root, project deletion is off by default and destructive tools are annotated (15 of 20). SECURITY.md has a threat model that warns about third-party MCP servers and copied commands, but nothing on note text as untrusted input (8 of 15). A local log file, and cloud audit logs only on Business (8 of 15). SECURITY.md gives an email and a 72-hour response aim but lists only 0.x.x as supported; no security.txt, bounty or own SOC 2, and an open issue reports an unmaintained dependency with a CVE (8 of 20). Total 61.

### Payments & pricing: Basic Memory +20

- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory (30): No x402, MPP or L402 on the Memory endpoints (0). Per-GB, per-record and per-retrieval prices published without a login, with a worked example (20). No Memory-specific free tier or sandbox. New AWS accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits, and the Free Tier FAQ says most new customers don't need a payment method while AWS may still ask for one, so half, as on our other AWS listings (10). A person creates the AWS account and sets up IAM (0).
- Basic Memory (50): Self-hosted rule, with the price lines read for the cloud. No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Cloud plans are public, and credits are $0.01 each, but what a credit buys isn't priced per unit (10). The open-source server is free with no card (20). An agent can install it from PyPI and run it with no account (20). Total 50.

### Maintenance & community: Basic Memory +8

- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory (83): The October 2026 release notes add a time-to-live for long-term memory records (`recordExpirySpecification` on `CreateMemory` and `UpdateMemory`) and the short-term price model change of 6 October, and the official `bedrock-agentcore` Python SDK shipped 1.25.2 on 30 October 2026, with Memory fixes in 1.24.2 (19 October) and 1.25.2 (30 October) (30). Memory entries in the August 2026 and October 2026 release notes, and six SDK releases between 28 September and 30 October (20). Public release notes with RSS and AWS re:Post. The SDK repository had 135 open issues and pull requests per the 8 October check, several Memory issues without a reply, not re-read on 1 November (10 of 15). Current official SDKs, `@aws-sdk/client-bedrock-agentcore` 3.1161.0 (30 October) and `bedrock-agentcore` 1.25.2 (15). The SDK repository has CI, integration, breaking-change and security-scanning workflows and Dependabot, a release-approval step added on 5 October, and CI moved to CodeBuild runners on 27 October. We did not confirm the default branch passes (8 of 10).
- Basic Memory (91): v1.0.0 on 29 October 2026 (30). v0.24.0 and v0.24.1 on 22 October and v1.0.0, three releases in 90 days (20). Recent issues from outside users got maintainer replies within a few days (20 of 25). Verified namespace io.github.basicmachines-co/basic-memory in the official MCP registry, published by a workflow (15). uv.lock and CI, with an open report of an unmaintained dependency (6 of 10). Total 91.

### Reliability: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +5

- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory (88): Graded as a hosted API, the AWS data plane that agents call. AWS Health Dashboard with per-service, per-Region history and RSS feeds (20). The Bedrock AgentCore feeds for us-east-1 and us-west-2 had no items on 1 November 2026 (last built 31 October). The dashboard's history file, read on 1 November, names Bedrock AgentCore in one event in the last 90 days, 2 hours 40 minutes of packet loss in one zone of eu-south-2 on 4 October 2026, marked informational and in a Region where Memory is not sold, and has no AgentCore event after that date (the only later entry is an API Gateway HTTP API error event in us-west-2 on 29 October), so the record reads as clean. The public dashboard lists only broad events (30). Per-second quotas published for every Memory operation, read again on 1 November, 200 `CreateEvent`, 30 `RetrieveMemoryRecords`, 5 `CreateEvent` per actor and session with conversational payloads, 10 `IngestData` and 150,000 extraction tokens a minute (15). 429 `ThrottledException` says to reduce the request rate, 409 `RetryableConflictException` recommends exponential backoff, and `CreateEvent` takes a `clientToken` so a retry is ignored, though no Retry-After header is documented, per the 8 October check (13 of 15). No SLA found for Memory. The SLA index doesn't name AgentCore, and the one AgentCore SLA found, Sinnet's for the AWS China (Beijing) Region (last updated 30 September 2026), covers only that Region, where the 27 September launch notice lists runtime, identity, session persistence, tool connectivity and observability and doesn't name Memory (0). Generally available since October 2025 per the release notes (10).
- Basic Memory (83): Local-software lines, as a stdio MCP server the owner runs. `basic-memory` on PyPI with Python 3.12 or newer stated, installed with uv (20). Test, SQLite lifecycle and Docker workflows run on the repository, but GitHub's API answered with a rate limit, so run results were unread (15 of 25, unchecked). 74 open issues and pull requests against 200 commits in the 90 days, with recent bug reports answered by a maintainer within days and one flaky-CI issue open (18 of 25). The changelog calls out breaking changes in their own sections (15). v1.0.0 on 29 October 2026 (15). Total 83.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory | Basic Memory | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 88 | 83 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 89 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 85 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 61 | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 50 | Basic Memory +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 91 | Basic Memory +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 82 | Basic Memory +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **79.7 · A** | **76.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory | Basic Memory |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Basic Memory LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the AWS Customer Agreement and Service Terms. The `bedrock-agentcore` Python SDK and the `@aws/agentcore` CLI are Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Tools exposed | 21 | 13 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.basicmachines-co/basic-memory` |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2026-10-27 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 776 stars, 1.1M npm/wk | 4.5k stars, 20k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory

- +0.3 on 17 October 2026: security

### Basic Memory

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory.** Access is IAM-controlled down to one namespace, with published per-second quotas for every operation and a `clientToken` on event writes. Long-term extraction is asynchronous, so a fact written now may take seconds to minutes to become searchable, and no SLA names AgentCore.

**Basic Memory.** Basic Memory 1.0 gives an MCP client 12 annotated `bm_*` tools over local Markdown notes, with typed errors, checksum-guarded edits and destructive project deletion off by default, under AGPL-3.0. Version 1.0 of 29 October 2026 removed every pre-1.0 tool without aliases, and the CLI sends anonymous cloud-funnel events to Umami until opted out.

## Before you call either

### Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory

1. Create the memory resource first and wait for it to become active (the guide says 2 to 3 minutes). Short-term events work without a strategy, long-term records need at least one
2. Don't search for a fact straight after `CreateEvent`. Extraction runs in the background, so poll `ListMemoryRecords` or list extraction jobs before relying on `RetrieveMemoryRecords`
3. Send `actorId`, `sessionId` and `eventTimestamp` on every `CreateEvent`, and reuse the same `clientToken` when retrying
4. Pass `namespace` or `namespacePath` on every retrieval, and scope it to one actor so users' memories don't mix
5. Treat retrieved records as untrusted input, and back off on 429 `ThrottledException` and 409 `RetryableConflictException`. A quota breach returns 402 `ServiceQuotaExceededException`

### Basic Memory

1. Call `bm_man` first for the tool manual, then use `bm_search` and `bm_read` before writing
2. Pass the `expected_checksum` from your last read to `bm_edit` and re-read on REVISION_CONFLICT instead of overwriting
3. Scope every search with `project`, `projects` or `all_projects=true`
4. Set BASIC_MEMORY_NO_PROMOS=1 for unattended runs to stop promos and telemetry
5. Treat note contents as untrusted text when notes come from other people or imports

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory or Basic Memory?

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory scores 79.7 (A) on agent readiness against Basic Memory's 76.9 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Basic Memory leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory and Basic Memory need an API key?

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Basic Memory needs no key.

### Can an agent call Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory and Basic Memory without installing anything?

Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory has a hosted endpoint at https://bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com. Basic Memory runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

### Are Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory and Basic Memory open source?

No open-source release is listed for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory. Basic Memory is open source (AGPL-3.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-basic-memory.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-basic-memory.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agentcore-memory", "b": "basic-memory"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agentcore-memory basic-memory`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentcore-memory.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/basic-memory.json

## Other comparisons with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory or Basic Memory

- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs claude-mem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-claude-mem.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Cognee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-cognee.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs EverOS](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-everos.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Agent Platform Memory Bank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-google-memory-bank.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Graphicle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-graphicle.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Graphiti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-graphiti.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Hindsight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-hindsight.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Honcho](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-honcho.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Hy Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-hy-memory.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs LangMem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-langmem.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs LocalGhost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-localghost.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Mem0 Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-mem0.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs MemMachine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-memmachine.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Memori](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-memori.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Memory (MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-memory-reference-server.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs MemPalace](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-mempalace.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs past.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-past-dev.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Supermemory API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-supermemory.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs TencentDB Agent Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-tencentdb-agent-memory.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Tokenrip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-tokenrip.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Zep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-zep.md)
- [Basic Memory vs claude-mem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-claude-mem.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Cognee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-cognee.md)
- [Basic Memory vs EverOS](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-everos.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Agent Platform Memory Bank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-google-memory-bank.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Graphicle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-graphicle.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Graphiti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-graphiti.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Hindsight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-hindsight.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Honcho](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-honcho.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Hy Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-hy-memory.md)
- [Basic Memory vs LangMem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-langmem.md)
- [Basic Memory vs LocalGhost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-localghost.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Mem0 Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-mem0.md)
- [Basic Memory vs MemMachine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-memmachine.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Memori](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-memori.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Memory (MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-memory-reference-server.md)
- [Basic Memory vs MemPalace](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-mempalace.md)
- [Basic Memory vs past.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-past-dev.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Supermemory API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-supermemory.md)
- [Basic Memory vs TencentDB Agent Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-tencentdb-agent-memory.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Tokenrip](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-tokenrip.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Zep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-zep.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs AI Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-ai-memory.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Context Mode Engine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-context-mode.md)
- [AI Memory vs Basic Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-basic-memory.md)
- [Basic Memory vs Context Mode Engine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/basic-memory-vs-context-mode.md)

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