Head to head · Agent memory · October 2026 research run

Honcho vs Hy Memory

Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against Hy Memory's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Hy Memory leads on reliability. Both do agent memory. Honcho accepts x402. Hy Memory doesn't.

Best memory layers for AI agents · All 77 memory comparisons

Which one, for what

Honcho B

Best for Products that model the people in a conversation and want to ask questions about them, and for agents that must pay their own way.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 79 against 55
  • Agent ergonomics, 65 against 60
  • Security & auth, 48 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 80 against 60
  • Transparency & trust, 67 against 62

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for

No published rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA

Hy Memory C

Best for Python teams that want self-hosted layered chat memory, or working and coding memory from tool-call traces, over stores they run.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 50

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

delete() leaves the source conversation, the deleted text in history.db and extraction prompts in cache.db, and can reactivate a superseded fact

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHonchoHy MemoryEdge
Reliability16%205065Hy Memory +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27955Honcho +24
Agent ergonomics13%16.26560Honcho +5
Security & auth14%17.54837Honcho +11
Payments & pricing10%12.58060Honcho +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87376Hy Memory +3
Transparency & trust7%8.86762Honcho +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 64.1/100C 57.7/100

Facts side by side

FactHonchoHy Memory
KindHTTP APISDK + MCP
VendorPlastic LabsTencent Hunyuan
Hosted endpointhttps://api.honcho.dev/v3no (local only)
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyNone
PricingPay per useFree
x402yes, from $0.001/callno
LicenceAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0 (PyPI metadata for the 1.x releases and 2.0.1 says MIT; 2.0.2 carries Apache-2.0)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryio.github.plastic-labs/honchonot listed
Last release2026-09-242026-10-16
Terms last updatedno date givenno document linked
Privacy policy last updated2025-04-24no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity7.4k stars, 18k npm/wk27 stars, 147 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)2.5/5 (4)

Verdicts

Honcho

Pay per call over x402 or MPP at agentcash.honcho.dev, with free read endpoints. No published rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA.

Hy Memory

An Apache-2.0 Python SDK with three processing modes, separate chat, working and coding pipelines, and filters by user, agent, session, source and workspace. Deletion does not stick everywhere. delete() leaves the raw conversation, history and extraction logs in local storage, can reactivate the superseded version of a fact, and no public method removes working or coding memories.

Before you call either

Honcho

  1. Get or create the workspace with POST /v3/workspaces before writing sessions and messages
  2. Batch up to 100 messages per request, each under 25,000 characters
  3. Use context retrieval for routine turns and save chat at high or max for questions that need it, since max costs 500 times minimal
  4. Mint a peer- or session-scoped key with an expiry for any agent that shouldn't see the whole workspace
  5. Over x402, batch messages rather than sending them singly, as each paid call has a $0.001 floor

Hy Memory

  1. Pass user_id on every add() and user_ids on every search(). Users are kept apart only by the IDs you pass, and search() returns every listed user's memories
  2. Choose the mode before writing. lite makes no LLM calls and stores raw text. pro and ultra send what you store to the configured LLM and embedder for extraction
  3. Don't rely on delete() to erase a fact. The raw conversation, history.db and cache.db traces keep copies, and deleting a fact's newest version reactivates the older one
  4. Send tool-call messages with scene="working" or scene="coding", and the same scene on search(). Without tool messages a write falls back to chat memory
  5. Keep python -m hy_memory.server on 127.0.0.1. It has no authentication and allows any web origin

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Honcho or Hy Memory?

Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against Hy Memory's 57.7 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Hy Memory leads on reliability.

Can an agent call Honcho and Hy Memory without installing anything?

Honcho has a hosted endpoint at https://api.honcho.dev/v3. No hosted endpoint is listed for Hy Memory.

Are Honcho and Hy Memory open source?

Yes. Honcho is open source (AGPL-3.0). Hy Memory is open source (Apache-2.0 (PyPI metadata for the 1.x releases and 2.0.1 says MIT; 2.0.2 carries Apache-2.0)).

Other comparisons with Honcho or Hy Memory

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

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