Head to head · Agent memory · October 2026 research run
Honcho vs Memory (MCP reference server)
Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against Memory (MCP reference server)'s 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Memory (MCP reference server) leads on transparency & trust. Both do agent memory. Honcho accepts x402. Memory (MCP reference server) doesn't.
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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
- Schema & documentation, 79 against 60
- Security & auth, 48 against 32
- Payments & pricing, 80 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 73 against 43
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
Memory (MCP reference server) C
Good for A single local agent that wants a small, inspectable store of facts about people and projects.
Ahead on
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 67
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
No pagination or limits. read_graph returns everything and search_nodes every match
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Honcho | Memory (MCP reference server) | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 52 | Memory (MCP reference server) +2 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 79 | 60 | Honcho +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 65 | 67 | Memory (MCP reference server) +2 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 48 | 32 | Honcho +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 80 | 60 | Honcho +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 73 | 43 | Honcho +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 67 | 72 | Memory (MCP reference server) +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 64.1 · B | 54.2 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Honcho | Memory (MCP reference server) |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Plastic Labs | MCP project (reference servers) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.honcho.dev/v3 | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | yes, from $0.001/call | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | MIT and Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 9 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | io.github.plastic-labs/honcho | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-08-31 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2021-09-08 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-24 | 2023-03-15 |
| 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 | yes | 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 | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 7.4k stars, 18k npm/wk | 90k stars, 136k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |
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.
Memory (MCP reference server)
Nine tools with typed schemas and accurate read, destructive and idempotent annotations. No pagination or limits. read_graph returns everything and search_nodes every match.
Before you call either
Honcho
- Get or create the workspace with POST /v3/workspaces before writing sessions and messages
- Batch up to 100 messages per request, each under 25,000 characters
- Use context retrieval for routine turns and save
chatat high or max for questions that need it, since max costs 500 times minimal - Mint a peer- or session-scoped key with an expiry for any agent that shouldn't see the whole workspace
- Over x402, batch messages rather than sending them singly, as each paid call has a $0.001 floor
Memory (MCP reference server)
- Set
MEMORY_FILE_PATHto an absolute path. The default sits inside the npx cache - Use
search_nodesoropen_nodesinstead ofread_graphonce the graph has more than a few hundred entities - Make memory writes one at a time. Parallel calls in one turn can overwrite each other in 2026.8.31
- Create both entities before
create_relations. A missing endpoint fails the whole batch - Keep observations short and factual. They come back verbatim in every later read
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Honcho or Memory (MCP reference server)?
Honcho scores 64.1 (B) on agent readiness against Memory (MCP reference server)'s 54.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Memory (MCP reference server) leads on transparency & trust.
Do Honcho and Memory (MCP reference server) need an API key?
Honcho takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Memory (MCP reference server) needs no key. An agent can also pay Honcho per call over x402, with no account.
Can an agent call Honcho and Memory (MCP reference server) without installing anything?
Honcho has a hosted endpoint at https://api.honcho.dev/v3. Memory (MCP reference server) runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.
Are Honcho and Memory (MCP reference server) open source?
Yes. Honcho is open source (AGPL-3.0). Memory (MCP reference server) is open source (MIT and Apache-2.0).
Other comparisons with Honcho or Memory (MCP reference server)
- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Honcho
- Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Memory vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Cognee vs Honcho
- Cognee vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Graphiti vs Honcho
- Graphiti vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Hindsight vs Honcho
- Hindsight vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Honcho vs LangMem
- Honcho vs LocalGhost
- Honcho vs Mem0 Platform + MCP
- Honcho vs Supermemory API + MCP
- Honcho vs Zep
- LangMem vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- LocalGhost vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Mem0 Platform + MCP vs Memory (MCP reference server)
- Memory (MCP reference server) vs Supermemory API + MCP
- Memory (MCP reference server) vs Zep
Disclosure
MCP started at Anthropic, which makes the Claude models our research agents and review panel run on (Anthropic donated it to the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund under the Linux Foundation, in December 2025), and this server is graded by the same checklist as every other listing.
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/honcho-vs-memory-reference-server.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/honcho.json·/api/v1/tools/memory-reference-server.json - From a terminal
anchor compare honcho memory-reference-server(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "honcho", "b": "memory-reference-server"}at/mcp, no key