vioscaleAI
Comparison

Cognee vs Zep

No leader: the top candidate Cognee has only 0.25 confidence (low), below the 0.35 needed to declare a winner. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Cognee full profile →Zep full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Cognee63
Zep58
Score
vioscaleAI score
Cognee63 / 100low · 25%
Zep58 / 100medium · 55%
Pricing
Free tier
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Model
Price level
Cogneelow
Zephigh
Starting price
Cognee$5
Zep$125
Transparent
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Integrations
Count
Cognee12
Zep9
Security
Certifications
Cognee–
ZepSOC 2 Type II
Gdpr
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Hipaa
Cognee–
Zep✓
Soc2
Cognee–
Zep✓
Trust center
Market
Availability
Content
Faq

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for agent memory. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Capabilities
Architecture model
CogneeOpen source self hosted
ZepManaged cloud API
Graph based entity relationship extraction
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Automatic context window rolling summarization
Cognee✓
Zep-
Semantic vs episodic event chronological memory
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Cross session and multi thread user persistence
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Memory conflict resolution and fact updating
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Multi tenant user and agent isolation
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Native langchain and llamaindex memory classes
Cognee✗
Zep✓
Time decay and recency weighted retrieval
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Zero data retention and pii redaction layer
Cognee✗
Zep-
SOC2 type ii
Cognee✗
Zep✓
Mit or apache permissive oss license
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Pricing model
CogneeFree open source
ZepUsage based per req

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Cognee

Open-source AI memory platform using knowledge graph architecture to help agents store, retrieve, and reason over information across sessions. Available as self-hosted open-source, managed cloud service, or enterprise bring-your-own-cloud deployment.

Independently observed

Zep

Combines data, documents, and conversation history from across your organization into structured knowledge graphs with access controls, allowing AI agents to retrieve the specific information they need for each task.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Cognee

from $5/workspace/moHybridFree tier

Free: 1M tokens + 1 workspace. Standard: $5/additional workspace/month. Premium and Enterprise custom pricing.

  • FreeFree
    • 1M tokens included
    • 1 workspace
    • Unlimited users
    • Unlimited API calls
    • Agentic integrations (Claude Code, Codex, MCP)
  • Standard$5 per additional workspace/month
    • Unlimited workspaces
    • Data source integrations: Slack, Notion, Linear, Google Drive
    • Code indexing for your repos
    • In-app support
  • ProfessionalContact sales
    • Bi-temporal memory & conflict resolution
    • Provenance on every answer
    • Personalization per user & agent
    • Dedicated Slack channel
    • Dedicated support engineer
    • +2 more
  • Enterprise (BYOC)Contact sales
    • BYOC deployment in customer VPC
    • Proprietary Cognee runtime
    • Auto-generated ontologies
    • Customer-specific evaluations
    • SSO and enterprise identity
    • +3 more
as of verify ↗

Zep

from $125/moUsage-basedFree tier

From $125/month. Free tier with 10,000 credits/month.

  • FreeFree
    • 10,000 credits per month
    • 2 projects
    • 1 Memory MCP Server seat
    • 5 custom entity & edge types
    • Variable rate limits
    • +1 more
  • Flex$125/month with 50,000 credits, then $25 per 10,000 credits
    • 50,000 credits included
    • Auto top-up at 20%, 30-day rollover
    • 600 projects
    • 5 Memory MCP Server seats
    • 10 custom entity & edge types
    • +2 more
  • Flex Plus$375/month with 200,000 credits, then $75 per 40,000 credits
    • 200,000 credits included
    • Auto top-up at 20%, 60-day rollover
    • 1,000 projects
    • 15 Memory MCP Server seats
    • 20 custom entity & edge types
    • +4 more
  • EnterpriseContact sales
    • Custom credits with negotiated rates
    • Guaranteed rate limits with SLA
    • Unlimited projects
    • Custom Memory MCP Server seats
    • SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA BAA
    • +2 more
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
Cognee✓
Zep✓
CLI
Cognee✗
Zep✓
Deployment
Cloud / SaaS
Cognee✓
Zep✓
Self-hosted
Cognee✓
Zep✓
On-premise
Cognee✓
Zep✗
Air-gapped
Cognee✓
Zep✗

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (3)
  • Cursor
  • Amazon Neptune
  • FalkorDB

Cognee

31 total - 28 not shared
  • Claude Code
  • Codex
  • LangGraph
  • OpenClaw
  • CrewAI
  • n8n
  • Slack
  • Notion
  • Google Drive
  • Weaviate
  • Qdrant
  • Pinecone
  • Redis
  • Azure AI Search
  • Milvus
  • OpenSearch
  • Valkey
  • Memgraph
  • NetworkX
  • Google Cloud Spanner
  • TuringDB
  • pgGraph
  • DuckDB
  • ScrapeGraphAI
  • +4 more
Independently observed

Zep

9 total - 6 not shared
  • Claude
  • OpenAI
  • Azure OpenAI
  • Google Gemini
  • Anthropic
  • Neo4j
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Cognee or Zep: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.