# Honcho vs LangMem

> Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against LangMem's 47.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do memory store. Honcho accepts x402. LangMem doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honcho-vs-langmem
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honcho-vs-langmem.md (~2,050 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honcho-vs-langmem.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/honcho-vs-langmem.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
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against LangMem's 47.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do memory store. Honcho accepts x402. LangMem doesn't.

- Honcho: grade B, 64.1/100, rank #328 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/honcho.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/honcho.json
- LangMem: grade D, 47.9/100, rank #734 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/langmem.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/langmem.json

## Which one, for what

### Honcho (B)

Good 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:
- Reliability, 50 against 32
- Schema & documentation, 79 against 55
- Payments & pricing, 80 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 59

Also in its favour:
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: No published rate limits, 429 guidance or SLA

### LangMem (D)

Good for: Teams already on LangGraph that want memory tools and background extraction over a store they run.

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: The newest PyPI release, 0.0.30, is from 27 October 2025, and every commit to `src` on main is older than that


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Honcho | LangMem | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 32 | Honcho +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 55 | Honcho +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 66 | LangMem +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 45 | Honcho +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 80 | 60 | Honcho +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 73 | 15 | Honcho +58 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 59 | Honcho +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.1 · B** | **47.9 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Honcho | LangMem |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Plastic Labs | LangChain |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.honcho.dev/v3` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | yes, from $0.001/call | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.plastic-labs/honcho` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2025-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-24 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 7.4k stars, 18k npm/wk | 1.7k stars, 214k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**LangMem.** Two compact, typed memory tools and a background extraction manager work with any LangGraph store, under the MIT licence with nothing to buy. The newest PyPI release, 0.0.30, dates from 27 October 2025. The repository has no changelog, tags or test workflow, and 23 of 54 open issues have no reply.

## 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

### LangMem

1. Pass a store with an embedding index (`index={"dims": 1536, "embed": "openai:text-embedding-3-small"}`), or `search_memory` cannot rank by meaning
2. Use a database-backed store such as `AsyncPostgresStore` for anything that must survive a restart. `InMemoryStore` loses everything
3. Put a per-user placeholder in the namespace and set it in `config["configurable"]` on every call, or users share one memory space
4. Send the memory `id` with `update` and `delete`, and never with `create`. A retried `create` writes a duplicate under a new UUID
5. Run on Python 3.11 or later. `src/langmem/knowledge/extraction.py` uses `typing.NotRequired`, which Python 3.10 lacks

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Honcho or LangMem?

Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against LangMem's 47.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Can an agent call Honcho and LangMem without installing anything?

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

### Are Honcho and LangMem open source?

Yes. Honcho is open source (AGPL-3.0). LangMem is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

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