--- title: "mempalace vs honcho" type: "comparison" canonical_url: "https://www.graphcanon.com/compare/mempalace-mempalace-vs-plastic-labs-honcho" tools: ["mempalace-mempalace", "plastic-labs-honcho"] --- # mempalace vs honcho Neutral, constraint-first comparison with live GitHub stats. | | [mempalace](/tools/mempalace-mempalace.md) | [honcho](/tools/plastic-labs-honcho.md) | | --- | --- | --- | | Tagline | The best-benchmarked open-source AI memory system. And it's free. | Memory library for building stateful agents | | Stars | 57,095 | 5,846 | | Forks | 7,376 | 698 | | Open issues | 596 | 155 | | Language | Python | Python | | Adopt for | MemPalace is a hierarchical, local-first AI memory system that stores verbatim conversation history and offers semantic search capabilities. | Honcho provides memory infrastructure for building stateful AI agents capable of dynamically understanding entities over time through message storage, event tracking, reasoning, and insight queries. | | Persona | - | - | | Runtime | - | - | | License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 | | Categories | Data & Retrieval, Vector Databases | AI Agents | ## Trust and health _Sourced signals - not a safety guarantee. No winner column._ | | [mempalace](/tools/mempalace-mempalace.md) | [honcho](/tools/plastic-labs-honcho.md) | | --- | --- | --- | | Open issues (now) | 596 | 155 | | Security scan | No criticals | No lockfile | | Full report | [trust report](/tools/mempalace-mempalace/trust.md) | [trust report](/tools/plastic-labs-honcho/trust.md) | **Typed relationship:** mempalace _(alternative)_ honcho Honcho and mempalace/mempalace both offer memory solutions for AI agents tailored toward benchmarking and improving agent performance over time, making them alternatives in the market. ## Shared compatibility - **Python**: [mempalace](/tools/mempalace-mempalace.md) - Python runtime; [honcho](/tools/plastic-labs-honcho.md) - Python runtime ## Decision facts: mempalace - **Adopt for:** MemPalace is a hierarchical, local-first AI memory system that stores verbatim conversation history and offers semantic search capabilities. ## Decision facts: honcho - **Adopt for:** Honcho provides memory infrastructure for building stateful AI agents capable of dynamically understanding entities over time through message storage, event tracking, reasoning, and insight queries. ## Choose when ### Choose mempalace if… - License: mempalace is MIT, honcho is AGPL-3.0. - Honcho and mempalace/mempalace both offer memory solutions for AI agents tailored toward benchmarking and improving agent performance over time, making them alternatives in the market. - Tags unique to mempalace: memory, ai, python, chromadb. - Also covers Data & Retrieval, Vector Databases. - - You require local storage for conversation history and want to avoid cloud dependencies. ### Choose honcho if… - License: honcho is AGPL-3.0, mempalace is MIT. - Honcho and mempalace/mempalace both offer memory solutions for AI agents tailored toward benchmarking and improving agent performance over time, making them alternatives in the market. - Tags unique to honcho: embeddings, continual-learning, long-term-memory, context-engineering. - Also covers AI Agents. - - When you need a system that can store messages and events to maintain long-term agent context. ## When NOT to use mempalace - - When requiring real-time collaboration across multiple devices, as MemPalace is focused on local storage. - - If your project strictly requires cloud-based solutions for ease of deployment and scalability. ## When NOT to use honcho - - If your application does not require stateful memory and dynamic tracking of entities over time. - - When the project does not align with Honcho's model of peer-centric reasoning and multi-peer perspective which might be unnecessary for straightforward agent needs. ## Common questions ### What is the difference between mempalace and honcho? mempalace: The best-benchmarked open-source AI memory system. And it's free.. honcho: Memory library for building stateful agents. See the comparison table for live GitHub stats and shared categories. ### When should I choose mempalace over honcho? Choose mempalace over honcho when License: mempalace is MIT, honcho is AGPL-3.0; Honcho and mempalace/mempalace both offer memory solutions for AI agents tailored toward benchmarking and improving agent performance over time, making them alternatives in the market; Tags unique to mempalace: memory, ai, python, chromadb; Also covers Data & Retrieval, Vector Databases; - You require local storage for conversation history and want to avoid cloud dependencies. ### When should I choose honcho over mempalace? Choose honcho over mempalace when License: honcho is AGPL-3.0, mempalace is MIT; Honcho and mempalace/mempalace both offer memory solutions for AI agents tailored toward benchmarking and improving agent performance over time, making them alternatives in the market; Tags unique to honcho: embeddings, continual-learning, long-term-memory, context-engineering; Also covers AI Agents; - When you need a system that can store messages and events to maintain long-term agent context. ### When should I avoid mempalace? - When requiring real-time collaboration across multiple devices, as MemPalace is focused on local storage. - If your project strictly requires cloud-based solutions for ease of deployment and scalability. ### When should I avoid honcho? - If your application does not require stateful memory and dynamic tracking of entities over time. - When the project does not align with Honcho's model of peer-centric reasoning and multi-peer perspective which might be unnecessary for straightforward agent needs. ### Is mempalace or honcho more popular on GitHub? mempalace has more GitHub stars (57,095 vs 5,846). Stars measure visibility, not whether either tool fits your constraints. ### Are mempalace and honcho open source? Yes - both are open-source projects on GitHub (mempalace: MIT, honcho: AGPL-3.0). ### Where can I find alternatives to mempalace or honcho? GraphCanon lists graph-backed alternatives at /tools/mempalace-mempalace/alternatives and /tools/plastic-labs-honcho/alternatives (/tools/mempalace-mempalace/alternatives.md, /tools/plastic-labs-honcho/alternatives.md), ranked by typed relationship edges rather than popularity votes. ### Is there a machine-readable version of this comparison? Yes. The markdown twin at /compare/mempalace-mempalace-vs-plastic-labs-honcho.md mirrors this page for agents and LLM crawlers, with the same stats table and FAQ answers. ### Which is better maintained, mempalace or honcho? mempalace: Very active. honcho: Very active. Compare maintenance labels, days since push, and release cadence in the trust section below - stars alone do not measure maintenance. ### Where are the full trust reports for mempalace and honcho? GraphCanon publishes per-repo trust reports with dated maintenance, provenance, and scan summaries: mempalace: /tools/mempalace-mempalace/trust; honcho: /tools/plastic-labs-honcho/trust. --- **Machine-readable endpoints** - JSON: [`/api/graphcanon/graph?tool=mempalace-mempalace`](/api/graphcanon/graph?tool=mempalace-mempalace) - LLM index: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt) - Full corpus: [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt) _GraphCanon - The knowledge graph for AI development. https://www.graphcanon.com/_