# Cognee vs Graphicle

> Graphicle scores 69.8 (B) to Cognee's 54.6 (C) for agent memory. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphicle
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphicle.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphicle.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cognee-vs-graphicle.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

Graphicle scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against Cognee's 54.6 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cognee leads on maintenance & community. Both do agent memory.

- Cognee: grade C, 54.6/100, rank #730 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cognee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cognee.json
- Graphicle: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #178 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/graphicle.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/graphicle.json
- Best memory layers for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/agent-memory/index.md
- All 65 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:
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 48

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

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

### Graphicle (B)

Good for: A developer who wants one local tool that gives Claude Code, Codex or Cursor both code structure and project memory with citations.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 63 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 86 against 59
- Security & auth, 69 against 39
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 35

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Cognee loses 3 points for them

Watch for: One release, v0.1.0 on 14 October 2026, from a repository created that day


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cognee | Graphicle | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 63 | Graphicle +13 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 83 | Cognee +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 86 | Graphicle +27 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 39 | 69 | Graphicle +30 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 60 | Graphicle +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 48 | Cognee +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 68 | Graphicle +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.6 · C** | **69.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cognee | Graphicle |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Platform | MCP server |
| Vendor | Cognee | KarLex AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://<tenant>.aws.cognee.ai/api/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, SSE (legacy) | stdio, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 7 | 25 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-27 | 2025-03-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-03-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 31k stars, 21k PyPI/wk | 144 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**Graphicle.** One local program gives a coding agent a code graph and project memory through 25 typed, annotated MCP tools that return cited excerpts within a token budget, with agent-written memories held for human approval. It is one day old at version 0.1.0, its SDKs are not on any registry, and the licence and advisory check fails on main.

## 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

### Graphicle

1. Call `recall_project` with a `max_tokens` budget, then `read_project_source` with the cited id and byte offset to continue a cut excerpt
2. Use `query_graph`, `get_neighbors` and `shortest_path` for structure questions, and pass `repo` to reach another synced project
3. Treat proposed memories as drafts. They are not served until a person approves them in `graphicle open` under Memory
4. Ask the user before running `graphicle setup`, which edits agent settings, AGENTS.md and Git hooks, and use `graphicle disconnect` to undo it
5. Over HTTP send the key as `Authorization: Bearer`, never in the URL, and on 429 wait for the Retry-After reset

## Questions

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

Graphicle scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against Cognee's 54.6 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Cognee leads on maintenance & community.

### Can an agent call Cognee and Graphicle without installing anything?

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

### Are Cognee and Graphicle open source?

Yes. Cognee is open source (Apache-2.0). Graphicle is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Cognee or Graphicle

- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Cognee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-vs-cognee.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Graphicle](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-memory-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 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)
- [Graphicle vs Graphiti](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-graphiti.md)
- [Graphicle vs Hindsight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-hindsight.md)
- [Graphicle vs Honcho](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-honcho.md)
- [Graphicle vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-khoj.md)
- [Graphicle vs LangMem](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-langmem.md)
- [Graphicle vs Mem0 Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-mem0.md)
- [Graphicle vs Supermemory API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-supermemory.md)
- [Graphicle vs Zep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/graphicle-vs-zep.md)