# AI Memory vs Cognee

> AI Memory scores 55.7 (C) to Cognee's 54.6 (C) for memory search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-19

AI Memory scores 55.7 (C) on agent readiness against Cognee's 54.6 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Cognee leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do memory search.

- AI Memory: grade C, 55.7/100, rank #733 of 1171. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ai-memory.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ai-memory.json
- Cognee: grade C, 54.6/100, rank #769 of 1171. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cognee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cognee.json
- Best memory layers for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-memory/index.md
- All 103 memory comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-memory/index.md

## Which one, for what

### AI Memory (C)

Good for: AI Memory keeps shared project memory and task handoffs across coding agents.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 59
- Security & auth, 55 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

Also in its favour:
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5
- No incidents deducted, where Cognee loses 3 points for them

Watch for: Existing deployments may still lack authentication

### Cognee (C)

Good for: Agents whose memory has to include documents, wikis and chat tools as well as conversation, and for teams happy to self-host.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 65
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 50
- Transparency & trust, 66 against 35

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: No status page, rate limits, SLA or SOC 2 for Cloud, and Cloud runs in AWS us-east-1 with no EU region


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AI Memory | Cognee | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 50 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 85 | Cognee +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 59 | AI Memory +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 55 | 39 | AI Memory +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | AI Memory +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 82 | Cognee +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 35 | 66 | Cognee +31 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **55.7 · C** | **54.6 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AI Memory | Cognee |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | Platform |
| Vendor | Fabio Akita | Cognee |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://<tenant>.aws.cognee.ai/api/v1` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP, stdio, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-17 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-03-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 11k stars | 31k stars, 21k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**AI Memory.** Cross-agent task handoffs and shared search. Existing deployments may still lack authentication.

**Cognee.** Apache-2.0 library, REST server and MCP server, all self-hostable, with local models and no LLM key since 1.6.0. No status page, rate limits, SLA or SOC 2 for Cloud, and Cloud runs in AWS us-east-1 with no EU region.

## Before you call either

### AI Memory

1. Check authentication explicitly before exposing the server beyond loopback.
2. Exclude secrets and sensitive repositories from memory capture.
3. Back up memory and follow the version 3 migration guide.

### Cognee

1. Use remember, recall and forget. The older cognify, search and delete MCP tools are gone
2. Always include /api/v1 in REST paths
3. Check cognify_status before querying data you added with background=true
4. Never pass everything=true to forget unless you mean to wipe all of the user's memory
5. Set a client timeout on Cloud calls and treat HTTP 402 as an empty balance, since an empty balance has also shown up as hangs

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AI Memory or Cognee?

AI Memory scores 55.7 (C) on agent readiness against Cognee's 54.6 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Cognee leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call AI Memory and Cognee without installing anything?

AI Memory runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Cognee has a hosted endpoint at https://<tenant>.aws.cognee.ai/api/v1.

### Are AI Memory and Cognee open source?

No open-source release is listed for AI Memory. Cognee is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AI Memory or Cognee

- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Cognee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-cognee.md)
- [Cognee vs Graphicle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphicle.md)
- [Cognee vs Graphiti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphiti.md)
- [Cognee vs Hindsight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-hindsight.md)
- [Cognee vs Honcho](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-honcho.md)
- [Cognee vs Hy Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-hy-memory.md)
- [Cognee vs LangMem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-langmem.md)
- [Cognee vs LocalGhost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-localghost.md)
- [Cognee vs Mem0 Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-mem0.md)
- [Cognee vs Memory (MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-memory-reference-server.md)
- [Cognee vs Supermemory API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-supermemory.md)
- [Cognee vs Zep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-zep.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs AI Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-ai-memory.md)
- [AI Memory vs Context Mode Engine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-context-mode.md)
- [AI Memory vs Graphicle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-graphicle.md)
- [AI Memory vs Graphiti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-graphiti.md)
- [AI Memory vs Hindsight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-hindsight.md)
- [AI Memory vs Honcho](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-honcho.md)
- [AI Memory vs Hy Memory](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-hy-memory.md)
- [AI Memory vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-khoj.md)
- [AI Memory vs LangMem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-langmem.md)
- [AI Memory vs Mem0 Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-mem0.md)
- [AI Memory vs Supermemory API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-supermemory.md)
- [AI Memory vs Zep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-zep.md)
- [Cognee vs Context Mode Engine](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-context-mode.md)
- [AI Memory vs Egoist AI Passport](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ai-memory-vs-egoist-ai-passport.md)

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