Agentic Index
Mem0 vs Zep (2026)
Choose Mem0 for a lightweight, open source add and search memory API and choose Zep for temporal knowledge graph memory that models how facts change over time. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Mem0 starts free with cloud plans from 19 dollars a month, while Zep offers a free tier with 1,000 credits a month and Flex from 125 dollars a month. Mem0 wins on simplicity and price of entry; Zep wins when relationships between facts and their history drive answer quality.
On the Agentic Index agent infrastructure ranking, neither Mem0 nor Zep clears the bar, which asks for all five production contract capabilities documented in full. Neither documents testing, debugging and optimization in full, nor observability and auditability. 34 of the 186 vendors in the lane clear it. See the agent infrastructure ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Mem0 and Zep are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 956 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Mem0 if
- You want persistent recall wired in with a few lines and minimal cost
- Open source self hosting of the memory layer is a requirement
- Cutting token spend through selective recall is the immediate goal
Choose Zep if
- Your assistant reasons over user facts that evolve, conflict, and supersede each other
- Graph structured memory answers your retrieval quality problems better than embeddings alone
- You prefer a managed service with credit based scaling to running your own layer
| At a glance | Mem0 | Zep |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Agent infrastructure | Agent infrastructure |
| Entry price | From $19/mo · free tier (10k add, 1k retrieval/mo) + open source | Free (10,000 credits/mo) · Flex $125/mo · Flex Plus $375/mo · Enterprise custom |
| Free / trial | Free Hobby tier: 10,000 add and 1,000 retrieval requests/month, 1 project, community support. Open source (Apache 2.0) and self hostable at no license cost. | Free plan: 10,000 credits a month (1 credit per Episode up to 350 bytes), no rollover. Open source Graphiti engine is free to self host. |
| Pricing confidence | public exact | public exact |
| Feature | M Mem0 |
Z Zep |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
|
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
Partial | Partial |
|
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
|
Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
| Knowledge & context | ||
|
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
No / Not documented | Full / Explicit |
|
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Control & trust | ||
|
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
|
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
Partial | Partial |
|
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
| Solution readiness | ||
|
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
| Platform extensibility | ||
|
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
Full / Explicit | Full / Explicit |
|
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
| Specialist automation | ||
|
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
No / Not documented | No / Not documented |
Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | M Mem0 |
Z Zep |
|---|---|---|
|
Entry price Lowest public entry point |
From $19/mo · free tier (10k add, 1k retrieval/mo) + open source | Free (10,000 credits/mo) · Flex $125/mo · Flex Plus $375/mo · Enterprise custom |
|
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, exact | Public, exact |
|
Billing Primary billing axis |
Subscription tiers metered by memory add and retrieval requests per month and number of projects; usage based pricing also available | Subscription tiers plus credits consumed by data ingestion (1 credit per Episode up to 350 bytes, +1 per additional 350 bytes); retrieval, storage, threads, users, and graph storage consume zero credits |
|
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Low variable cost |
|
Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tier
|
Free tier
|
|
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Self-serve | Self-serve |
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