# Cognee vs Context Mode Engine

> Cognee scores 54.6 (C) to Context Mode Engine's 45.8 (E) for memory search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-19

Cognee scores 54.6 (C) on agent readiness against Context Mode Engine's 45.8 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Context Mode Engine leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do memory search.

- 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
- Context Mode Engine: grade E, 45.8/100, rank #993 of 1171. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/context-mode.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/context-mode.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

### 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:
- Reliability, 50 against 45
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 65
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 10
- Transparency & trust, 66 against 42

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

### Context Mode Engine (E)

Good for: Context Mode Engine indexes tool output and session events locally for coding agents.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 65 against 59
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- 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: Hosted-service restrictions under Elastic License 2.0


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cognee | Context Mode Engine | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 45 | Cognee +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 65 | Cognee +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 65 | Context Mode Engine +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 39 | 35 | Cognee +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | Context Mode Engine +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 10 | Cognee +72 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 42 | Cognee +24 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.6 · C** | **45.8 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cognee | Context Mode Engine |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | MCP server |
| Vendor | Cognee | MKSF LTD |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://<tenant>.aws.cognee.ai/api/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, SSE (legacy) | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Elastic License 2.0, source available with restrictions on hosted or managed services. |
| Tools exposed | 7 | 11 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-06-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-27 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 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 | 31k stars, 21k PyPI/wk | 31k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Context Mode Engine.** Local indexing and selective retrieval. Hosted-service restrictions under Elastic License 2.0.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Context Mode Engine

1. Choose the installation guide for the exact coding client.
2. Check host permissions before enabling code execution.
3. Review the Elastic licence before hosting Engine for others.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cognee or Context Mode Engine?

Cognee scores 54.6 (C) on agent readiness against Context Mode Engine's 45.8 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Context Mode Engine leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

### Can an agent call Cognee and Context Mode Engine without installing anything?

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

### Are Cognee and Context Mode Engine open source?

Cognee is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Context Mode Engine.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cognee or Context Mode Engine

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

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