claude-mem vs cognee
claude-mem is much bigger: 93.2k stars against 30.5k. Over the days we have tracked them claude-mem moved +6.6% and cognee +19.7%, so cognee is growing faster right now.
They split the axes: claude-mem leads on setup ease, cognee on context depth.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
Claude-Mem pairs a Claude Code–focused persistent memory with progressive-disclosure search tools and a local worker/web UI to deliver token-efficient, session-persistent context.
- Stars
- 93.2k
- Tracked growth
- +6.6%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 5h ago
- Language
- JavaScript
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Your API key for model calls; optional cloud backup to cmem.ai
Runs the full memory layer (graph, vectors, sessions) on a single self-hosted Postgres-backed stack, combining vector search and evolving knowledge graphs.
- Stars
- 30.5k
- Tracked growth
- +19.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 54m ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Your LLM API key, or use Cognee Cloud (managed)
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | claude-mem | cognee |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Related files & memory | ●●●●● Whole-graph memory |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Configurable filters | ●●●●● Feedback & routing |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Config file & modes | ●●●●● Config + plugins |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Self-hostable (local worker) | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Bring-your-key (many providers) | ●●●●● Bring-your-key |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● One-command install | ●●●●● API key required |
Which one to pick
Pick claude-mem if…
Easy setup — one-command installer and a local worker that preserves and injects compressed session context into future Claude Code sessions.
- Setup ease: One-command install (5/5 against 3/5)
Pick cognee if…
Self-hostable — run a unified, persistent agent memory on a single Postgres instance with minimal extra services and strong integration options.
- Context depth: Whole-graph memory (5/5 against 3/5)
What people want from each one
thedotmack/claude-mem
Hacker News: Claude-Mem drew 2 points and 1 comments.
- v13.24.0 ships the 13.23.1 bundle: manifest/worker version mismatch makes the hook kill the worker on every event 👍 5
- [plan-14] Child Process Ownership — every process the worker spawns dies with the worker 👍 2
- Unexpectedly high API cost: claude-mem adds ~64% on top of my actual coding model spend 👍 2
topoteretes/cognee
Hacker News: Show HN: Cognee – Open-Source AI Memory Layer That Remembers Context drew 9 points and 2 comments.
- [Hackathon] Vellum integration — cognee memory nodes for Vellum Workflows 👍 0
- [Bug]: recall ratifies affirmative/keyword queries as stored facts — and can harden them (e.g. 'added to watch list' becomes 'merged') 👍 0
- [Bug] GET /datasets/{id}/data and /data/{id}/raw return 500 (IndexError) instead of 404 when dataset is not found 👍 0
Questions people ask
Is claude-mem better than cognee?
They split the axes: claude-mem leads on setup ease, cognee on context depth. claude-mem is worth picking when easy setup — one-command installer and a local worker that preserves and injects compressed session context into future Claude Code sessions.
Which of claude-mem and cognee keeps my code private?
claude-mem: Self-hostable (local worker) (4/5). cognee: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
claude-mem: Your API key for model calls; optional cloud backup to cmem.ai. cognee: Your LLM API key, or use Cognee Cloud (managed).
Full profiles: thedotmack/claude-mem and topoteretes/cognee. Everything else in Memory & context.