Cognee vs Zep
A side-by-side comparison of Cognee and Zep, two Memory tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
The honest brief
Cognee
Builds an LLM-derived knowledge graph alongside embeddings, so recall follows relationships, not just vector similarity.
- Self-hostable Python SDK
- Recall follows concept relationships
- Bring your own LLM/embedding provider
- Newer, smaller ecosystem
- Cognify pipeline adds LLM cost
- Self-host setup overhead
Zep
Stores a temporal knowledge graph (via OSS Graphiti) that versions how facts change over time, not flat snapshots.
- Open-source Graphiti engine (Apache-2.0)
- Managed Zep Cloud option
- Pulls in chat + business data
- Long-term context for agents
- Graph approach has learning curve
- Cloud is credit-based pricing
- Heavier than simple vector memory
- Newer ecosystem