Head to head · Agent memory · October 2026 research run

Basic Memory vs Agent Platform Memory Bank

Basic Memory scores 76.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Platform Memory Bank's 65.6 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Agent Platform Memory Bank leads on security & auth. Both do agent memory.

Best memory layers for AI agents · All 353 memory comparisons

Which one, for what

Basic Memory BB

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

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 83 against 68
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 75
  • Agent ergonomics, 85 against 75
  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 91 against 62

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No key needed to call it
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

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

Agent Platform Memory Bank B

Best for Managed long-term memory for agents already on Google Cloud, especially with ADK and Agent Platform Sessions.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 72 against 61

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

Needs a Google Cloud project with billing, set up by a person in the console

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing Basic Memory +30

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.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 20

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Storage, read and write prices are published without a login (20). No Memory Bank free tier found (0). A person creates the project, enables billing and sets up IAM in the console (0). Total 20.

Maintenance & community Basic Memory +29

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.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 62

The newest Memory Bank release notes are of 20 August 2026 (IngestEvents GA, metadata, Gemini Embedding 2), 78 days before the check, and billing started on 1 September (20). Three Memory Bank entries in the 90 days, all on 20 August (10 of 20). Public release notes and Cloud Customer Care (12 of 15). google-cloud-agentplatform 2.7.0 on 28 October 2026, twelve releases in 90 days per its PyPI release feed, plus ADK (15). SDK test status not checked (5 of 10). Total 62.

Reliability Basic Memory +15

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.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 68

Hosted lines. Google Cloud status dashboard with per-product history (20). Its incident feed, read on 6 November 2026, holds four incidents since 8 August (20 August, 27 products; 1 September, us-central1-b; 8 October, Cloud Storage; 20 October, europe-west2, 38 products), and none names Agent Platform, Vertex or Memory Bank (30). No Memory Bank quotas or rate limits were found; the platform quotas path guessed returned 404 (0, unchecked). Generation is a long-running operation with wait and cancel methods, and Google's retry guidance wasn't re-read for this API (8 of 15). No SLA for Memory Bank was found in the pages read (0, unchecked). Memory profiles, IngestEvents and multi-regional endpoints are GA (10). Total 68.

Schema & documentation Basic Memory +14

Basic Memory 89

Typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool from Pydantic annotations (25). llms.txt on the site and the docs, with Markdown versions of pages (10). Descriptions say what each tool does and point to the next tool, such as bm_search ending with "Read full notes with bm_read", and bm_man serves the manual, with less on when not to use a tool (16 of 20). Closed values for search mode, edit command and schema command, with aliases accepted for common argument names (13 of 15). Typed refusal codes are documented in the changelog and docs, with fewer worked examples per tool (11 of 15). Dated changelog and MCP registry versions, plus an unreleased breaking change after 1.0 (14 of 15). Total 89.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 75

Google's discovery document is a machine-readable contract for every memory method (25). No llms.txt or Markdown docs found (0). Method descriptions are 13 to 39 characters, one-line summaries, while the guides explain when to generate from sessions or from direct facts (12 of 20). Typed schemas with required fields in the discovery document (12 of 15). Python examples, a troubleshooting page and a documented 404 for deleted memories (11 of 15). v1 and v1beta1 and dated release notes (15). Total 75.

Security & auth Agent Platform Memory Bank +11

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.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 72

OAuth 2.0 with IAM and service accounts (30), less 10, as for the other Google API listings, because the v1 discovery document lists access_token, oauth_token and key as query parameters (20 of 30). IAM Conditions can restrict access by memory scope; purge and delete have no confirmation (15 of 20). Memories are written by an LLM from conversation content and returned to agents, with no injection guidance found (5 of 15). Access Transparency and Access Approval are listed; Cloud Audit Logs coverage for Memory Bank wasn't read (12 of 15). Google's valid security.txt, vulnerability reward programme and certifications, with HIPAA listed for Memory Bank (20). Total 72.

Agent ergonomics Basic Memory +10

Basic Memory 85

13 tools, one hidden unless enabled, so the 11 to 30 band (15), with 6 back for the manual tool and the progressive-discovery tags (21 of 25). Search narrows by mode, filters, note types, items, since, path and line context (18 of 20). Refusals are tool errors with typed codes an agent can act on (17 of 20). Every tool has readOnly, destructive and idempotent hints, and edits take an expected checksum that refuses a stale write (19 of 20). Most arguments are optional and the server starts with one command, but there is one language and no SDK beyond the CLI (10 of 15). Total 85.

Agent Platform Memory Bank 75

Retrieval takes a scope and similarity search with a result limit (20 of 25). List methods page with page tokens and filters (16 of 20). Google's standard error model with status codes (15 of 20). Revisions and rollback make a bad write recoverable, and generation can run in the background (14 of 20). Python SDK and ADK integration, with REST for other languages (10 of 15). Total 75.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBasic MemoryAgent Platform Memory BankEdge
Reliability16%208368Basic Memory +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28975Basic Memory +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.28575Basic Memory +10
Security & auth14%17.56172Agent Platform Memory Bank +11
Payments & pricing10%12.55020Basic Memory +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89162Basic Memory +29
Transparency & trust7%8.88281Basic Memory +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalBB 76.9/100B 65.6/100

Facts side by side

FactBasic MemoryAgent Platform Memory Bank
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorBasic Memory LLCGoogle Cloud
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1
TransportsstdioHTTP
AuthNoneOAuth
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0none
Tools exposed13none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryio.github.basicmachines-co/basic-memorynot listed
Last release2026-10-292026-08-20
Terms last updated2026-10-272026-09-02
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-272026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity4.5k stars, 20k PyPI/wknone

Verdicts

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.

Agent Platform Memory Bank

Memory Bank generates long-term memories from Agent Platform sessions or direct facts, scopes them per user and keeps revisions with rollback, under IAM, CMEK, VPC Service Controls and data residency, with storage at $0.30 per GiB-month. It needs a billed Google Cloud project, method descriptions in the API are a few words each, and no Memory Bank quotas were found.

Before you call either

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

Agent Platform Memory Bank

  1. Run memories.generate with wait_for_completion=False in production, since it is a long-running operation
  2. Always pass a scope such as {"user_id": ...} so one user's memories never reach another
  3. Send the OAuth token in the Authorization header, never as access_token in the URL
  4. Expect a 404 when fetching a deleted memory and treat it as gone
  5. Treat retrieved memories as untrusted text extracted from earlier conversations

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Basic Memory or Agent Platform Memory Bank?

Basic Memory scores 76.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Agent Platform Memory Bank's 65.6 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Agent Platform Memory Bank leads on security & auth.

Do Basic Memory and Agent Platform Memory Bank need an API key?

Basic Memory needs no key. Agent Platform Memory Bank uses an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Basic Memory and Agent Platform Memory Bank without installing anything?

Basic Memory runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Agent Platform Memory Bank has a hosted endpoint at https://aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1.

Are Basic Memory and Agent Platform Memory Bank open source?

Basic Memory is open source (AGPL-3.0). No open-source release is listed for Agent Platform Memory Bank.

Other comparisons with Basic Memory or Agent Platform Memory Bank

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