Cerebro vs Zep
Cerebro or Zep?
Zep's strength is temporal accuracy: a bi-temporal knowledge graph that tracks what was true and when, with published accuracy numbers and a real graph engine. Cerebro shares that temporal premise — validity windows and supersede chains are first-class here too — but wraps it in a shared company brain: connectors that feed it, a review queue, SSO, and compliance-grade erasure. Pick Zep when you're building the memory layer into your own product and want the graph engine. Pick Cerebro when a team and its agents need one brain they can trust over time.
Zep: a temporal knowledge-graph memory service (Graphiti-based) you call from an agent via API/SDK.
| Cerebro | Zep | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | ▸Shared company brain (humans + agents), connector-fed | Temporal knowledge-graph memory API/SDK |
| "What was true when" | Temporal validity + supersede chains | Bi-temporal knowledge graph (their core) |
| Entity-relationship graph | Supersede / contradict links + constellation view | ▸Full Graphiti entity graph |
| Multi-tenant + row-level security | ▸Postgres RLS; reads scoped by membership | Project / user API scoping |
| Auto-feed from your tools | ▸Slack, GitHub, webhook live; more in dev | You ingest via API |
| Review before it's kept | ▸Keeper proposes; you approve/reject | Programmatic writes |
| SDKs / published benchmarks | MCP-native; eval infra built, numbers not yet published | ▸SDKs + published temporal-accuracy numbers |
| Compliance | ▸SSO, immutable audit log, DPDP/GDPR erasure cascade | Platform-level controls |
| Own your data | MIT core; exports to plain markdown; BYO LLM key | Open-source graph engine available |
| Humans + agents on one surface | ▸Web UI for people, MCP for agents — same brain | API-first (bring your own UI) |
Comparison reflects each product's public positioning as of mid-2026. Zep keeps shipping — if something here is out of date, tell us.
Pick Zep if
- You need a pure temporal knowledge-graph memory API to embed in your own product.
- You want a full entity-relationship graph and published temporal-accuracy numbers.
- You're building the memory layer yourself and just need the engine + SDK.
Pick Cerebro if
- You want temporal recall ("what was true when") and a shared team brain around it.
- You want Slack/GitHub feeding it, a review queue, SSO, and DPDP/GDPR erasure out of the box.
- Humans and agents should share one brain via a web UI and MCP — not just an API.
- You want a markdown, MIT-licensed core you can self-host and export.
Buyers say demos lie — so run it on your own data.
The MIT core is a one-command install. Point Claude Code or Cursor at Cerebro and watch it recall your first decision in under two minutes.