Both are open source memory options with comparable terms, so the choice comes down to which model of the problem you prefer — compare the descriptions below rather than the licence.
Temporal knowledge graph memory — facts with validity windows, not just embeddings.
Treats memory as a reasoning problem, not a retrieval one — you ask its Dialectic API a question about the user and get a synthesised answer.
A fine-tuned model extracts preferences, beliefs and contradictions in the background rather than embedding transcripts. Managed at api.honcho.dev, or self-host the FastAPI server. Hermes Agent uses it for user modelling.
| Zep | Honcho | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source | Open source |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Languages | Python, TypeScript | Python, TypeScript |
| Install | — | — |
| Keys required | ZEP_API_KEY | None |
Both are open source memory options with comparable terms, so the choice comes down to which model of the problem you prefer — compare the descriptions below rather than the licence. Zep: Temporal knowledge graph memory — facts with validity windows, not just embeddings. Honcho: Treats memory as a reasoning problem, not a retrieval one — you ask its Dialectic API a question about the user and get a synthesised answer.
Zep can run on your own infrastructure. Honcho can run on your own infrastructure.
Zep is open source (freemium). Honcho is open source (freemium).
Every page here answers to Accept: text/markdown and returns the same content at roughly a tenth the tokens. No separate site, no toggle — same URL.
curl -s -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://newagent.build/compare/zep-vs-honcho