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AI Memory🔴Developer
C

Cognee

Open-source AI memory platform that turns unstructured data into a knowledge graph for agents, with a managed cloud and MCP integration.

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💡

In Plain English

Open-source AI memory platform that turns unstructured data into a knowledge graph for agents, with a managed cloud and MCP integration.

OverviewFeaturesPricingGetting StartedUse CasesIntegrationsLimitationsFAQSecurityAlternatives

Overview

Cognee is an open-source memory engine that gives AI agents a structured, queryable picture of their world rather than a flat vector store. You feed Cognee text, PDFs, audio, code, or arbitrary documents and it runs a pipeline that extracts entities, relationships, and temporal facts into a knowledge graph backed by your choice of vector and graph databases (Neo4j, Postgres+pgvector, FalkorDB, Qdrant, Pinecone, LanceDB, and more). At query time agents get back a hybrid bundle of graph traversals plus semantic chunks, which produces noticeably more accurate answers than vector-only RAG on the kinds of multi-hop, entity-rich questions that real users actually ask. The platform is built around a Python SDK and a REST API; integrations exist for LangChain, LlamaIndex, Mastra, and Vercel AI SDK. Critically for the MCP wave, Cognee ships an official MCP server so any MCP-aware client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Goose, OpenAI Agents SDK) can store and recall memories in a shared graph with one config line. Pricing has a generous Free open-source tier you can self-host, then managed cloud plans at roughly $35/month (Starter), $100/month (Pro), and $750/month (Team/Scale), with Enterprise on a custom contract for private deployments and SLAs. Teams use Cognee for research agents, personal AI products, customer support memory, regulated-industry assistants, and any setup where a knowledge graph beats raw embeddings.

🦞

Using with OpenClaw

▼

Integrate Cognee with OpenClaw through available APIs or create custom skills for specific workflows and automation tasks.

Use Case Example:

Extend OpenClaw's capabilities by connecting to Cognee for specialized functionality and data processing.

Learn about OpenClaw →
🎨

Vibe Coding Friendly?

▼
Difficulty:intermediate

Requires Neo4j setup and Python pipeline configuration. Suitable for developers comfortable with graph databases.

Learn about Vibe Coding →

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Editorial Review

Cognee brings knowledge graph construction to AI memory, using graph databases (Neo4j) to store relationships between entities rather than just vector similarity. This graph-based approach excels at complex reasoning over interconnected information. The pipeline for extracting and structuring knowledge from documents is well-designed. Still an early-stage project with a small community, limited documentation, and fewer production deployments. Best for teams that need relationship-aware memory and are comfortable with emerging tools.

Key Features

Cognify Pipeline for Graph Construction+

The core cognee.cognify() function processes raw text through chunking, entity extraction, relationship identification, and graph storage in a single call. Each stage is a composable Python task that can be swapped or extended, letting you customize behavior without rewriting the pipeline. This makes the simplest case (ingest a PDF and query it) trivially easy while keeping advanced customization within reach.

Dual Vector + Graph Storage+

Cognee stores every ingested entity in both a graph database (Neo4j, Kuzu, or NetworkX) and a vector store (Qdrant, LanceDB, pgvector, Weaviate, or Milvus). Retrieval can combine graph traversal for relational queries with vector similarity for semantic search, giving you flexibility to answer different question types from the same knowledge base. This dual representation is the key technical differentiator versus pure-vector RAG frameworks.

Custom Ontologies via Pydantic Models+

You can define domain-specific schemas as Pydantic DataPoint subclasses — for example, a Patient class with fields for diagnoses, medications, and providers. The pipeline uses these schemas to guide structured extraction from documents, producing typed entities rather than generic strings. This is critical for regulated domains where extracted data feeds downstream systems requiring strict typing and validation.

Multi-Provider LLM Support via LiteLLM+

Cognee integrates with 30+ LLM providers through LiteLLM, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Azure, AWS Bedrock, Groq, Ollama, and self-hosted models. You can mix providers across the pipeline — for example, using a cheaper model for chunking and a stronger model for entity extraction. This flexibility avoids vendor lock-in and lets teams optimize cost vs quality per pipeline stage.

Cognee Cloud Managed Platform+

The hosted cloud tier provides a dashboard for graph exploration, pipeline monitoring, and data source management without requiring teams to operate Neo4j or vector infrastructure themselves. It includes visualization of the knowledge graph, ingestion job tracking, and team collaboration features. This bridges the gap for teams that want Cognee's capabilities without the DevOps burden of self-hosting the full stack.

Pricing Plans

Open Source

$0

    Starter

    $35/mo

      Pro

      $100/mo

        Scale

        $750/mo

          Enterprise

          Custom

            See Full Pricing →Free vs Paid →Is it worth it? →

            Ready to get started with Cognee?

            View Pricing Options →

            Getting Started with Cognee

            1. 1Install Cognee via pip install cognee and set up a Neo4j database instance locally or in the cloud
            2. 2Configure your LLM provider credentials (OpenAI, Anthropic) in the Cognee environment settings
            3. 3Upload your first document set using cognee.add() and run cognee.cognify() to build the knowledge graph
            4. 4Query your knowledge graph using cognee.query() with natural language or traverse relationships with graph queries
            Ready to start? Try Cognee →

            Best Use Cases

            🎯

            Research agents needing multi-hop reasoning

            ⚡

            Customer support with long-running case memory

            🔧

            Personal AI products with user knowledge graphs

            🚀

            Regulated assistants requiring auditable facts

            💡

            RAG upgrades beyond vector-only retrieval

            Integration Ecosystem

            8 integrations

            Cognee works with these platforms and services:

            🧠 LLM Providers
            OpenAIAnthropic
            📊 Vector Databases
            QdrantWeaviatepgvector
            🗄️ Databases
            PostgreSQL
            ⚡ Code Execution
            Docker
            🔗 Other
            GitHub
            View full Integration Matrix →

            Limitations & What It Can't Do

            We believe in transparent reviews. Here's what Cognee doesn't handle well:

            • ⚠Knowledge graph quality is highly dependent on input data quality and domain-specific extraction configuration — defaults work for general text but specialized domains need custom ontologies
            • ⚠Graph database dependency (Neo4j or alternative) adds infrastructure complexity and operational overhead compared to vector-only approaches
            • ⚠Entity extraction accuracy varies by domain and LLM choice — extraction costs can grow significantly for large corpora since every chunk requires LLM calls
            • ⚠Incremental updates and graph consistency management require careful engineering for dynamic data sources, with no automatic cleanup of stale nodes
            • ⚠Project is still pre-1.0 with breaking changes between minor versions — teams should pin versions and budget for periodic migration work

            Pros & Cons

            ✓ Pros

            • ✓Graph + vector hybrid beats vector-only RAG on multi-hop questions
            • ✓Pluggable storage — bring your existing Neo4j, pgvector, or Qdrant
            • ✓Official MCP server makes Cognee a drop-in memory layer for Claude, Cursor, Goose
            • ✓Open-source core means you can self-host and audit the pipeline
            • ✓Integrates with LangChain, LlamaIndex, Mastra, and Vercel AI SDK out of the box

            ✗ Cons

            • ✗Graph extraction quality depends on the LLM you run the pipeline with
            • ✗Self-host setup is a real ops project vs. dropping in a vector DB
            • ✗Overkill for simple FAQ or single-document retrieval
            • ✗Managed cloud middle tier ($35–$100/mo) tight for very heavy workloads

            Frequently Asked Questions

            How does Cognee compare to building a RAG system with just a vector database?+

            Vector-only RAG retrieves text chunks by semantic similarity, which works well for direct lookup questions but struggles with multi-hop reasoning. Cognee adds structured relationships between entities, enabling queries like 'find all regulations affecting suppliers of company X' that require traversing connections. Based on our analysis of 870+ AI tools, this graph+vector hybrid approach is becoming the standard for enterprise RAG where questions span multiple documents. If your queries can be answered by finding similar text, a plain vector DB is simpler and cheaper; if they require understanding how entities connect, Cognee's overhead pays off.

            Do I need Neo4j expertise to use Cognee?+

            For basic use, no — Cognee abstracts graph construction behind high-level functions like cognee.cognify() and cognee.search(), so you can ingest data and query it without writing any Cypher. The framework also supports lighter alternatives like Kuzu (embedded) and NetworkX (in-memory) if you want to avoid running Neo4j entirely. For advanced custom queries, ontology design, or performance tuning at scale, graph database knowledge becomes valuable. Most teams start with the defaults and only learn Cypher when they hit specific retrieval requirements that the high-level API doesn't cover.

            How does Cognee handle knowledge updates when source documents change?+

            Cognee supports incremental ingestion where new or updated documents are reprocessed and added to the graph, with deduplication on entity IDs to merge mentions of the same concept across documents. However, true update semantics are imperfect: if information is removed from a source document, the corresponding graph nodes don't automatically disappear — you need to explicitly delete and re-ingest, or implement custom cleanup logic. For frequently changing data sources, teams typically version their datasets and rebuild graphs periodically rather than relying on continuous incremental updates.

            Is Cognee suitable for production applications?+

            The open-source library is used in production by multiple teams, particularly for agent memory systems and domain-specific RAG pipelines. The managed cloud platform adds a dashboard, hosted infrastructure, and monitoring for teams that don't want to operate Neo4j themselves. For mission-critical applications, you should benchmark extraction quality against your specific document types, define custom ontologies for your domain, and implement evaluation pipelines — Cognee is mature enough for production but young enough that you should plan for some integration work and occasional API changes between releases.

            How does Cognee compare to Mem0 and other agent memory tools?+

            Mem0 focuses on conversational memory for chatbots — remembering user preferences, facts, and past interactions across sessions with a simple key-value-like API. Cognee is broader and more structural: it builds full knowledge graphs from documents, conversations, and structured data, optimized for retrieval over large bodies of connected information rather than per-user chat memory. Compared to the other AI memory tools in our directory, choose Mem0 for lightweight chatbot personalization and Cognee when you need structured knowledge representation, multi-hop queries, or domain-specific ontologies. Many teams use both — Mem0 for user state, Cognee for the underlying knowledge base.

            🔒 Security & Compliance

            —
            SOC2
            Unknown
            —
            GDPR
            Unknown
            —
            HIPAA
            Unknown
            —
            SSO
            Unknown
            ✅
            Self-Hosted
            Yes
            ✅
            On-Prem
            Yes
            —
            RBAC
            Unknown
            —
            Audit Log
            Unknown
            ✅
            API Key Auth
            Yes
            ✅
            Open Source
            Yes
            —
            Encryption at Rest
            Unknown
            ✅
            Encryption in Transit
            Yes
            Data Retention: configurable
            🦞

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            What's New in 2026

            Recent releases have expanded backend support to include Kuzu as an embedded graph database, added more vector store integrations (LanceDB, Milvus), and improved ontology-driven extraction with custom Pydantic DataPoint schemas. The managed Cognee Cloud platform has continued to mature with dashboard improvements for graph exploration and pipeline monitoring.

            Alternatives to Cognee

            LlamaIndex

            AI agent framework

            LlamaIndex is an open-source Python and TypeScript framework for building RAG, document workflows, and AI agents — with LlamaCloud for managed parsing, extraction, and indexing.

            LangChain

            AI Agent Builders

            The industry-standard framework for building production-ready LLM applications with comprehensive tool integration, agent orchestration, and enterprise observability through LangSmith.

            Mem0

            AI agent memory

            Memory infrastructure for AI agents and applications, available as an open-source framework and managed platform.

            View All Alternatives & Detailed Comparison →

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            Quick Info

            Category

            AI Memory

            Website

            www.cognee.ai
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