A self-hosted cognitive memory engine that stores memories across five sectors (episodic, semantic, procedural, emotional, reflective) rather than flat chunks. It layers a temporal knowledge graph with valid_from/valid_to facts and point-in-time queries, plus an associative 'waypoint' graph of traversable links, on top of embeddings — with a decay and reinforcement engine in place of TTLs. Recall returns an explainable trace showing which nodes fired. Ships as a Python or Node SDK against local SQLite, or as a multi-user server with REST API, dashboard, and MCP.
- Storage
- SQLite by default (local-first, zero external infra); Postgres in server mode. Temporal knowledge-graph facts are stored alongside vector embeddings, with pluggable embedders (OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, AWS, or a synthetic fallback).
- Retrieval
- Composite scoring over salience, recency, and coactivation across the multi-sector store; graph traversal of associative waypoint links for multi-hop recall; and point-in-time temporal fact queries via /api/temporal/* that resolve what was true at a given date.
- Self-host
- Self-host: trivial
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Pricing
- Free and open source, self-hosted only — no vendor-hosted tier found. Cost is your own infra; the project's own comparison estimates roughly $5–8/month of storage at 100k memories. · Free / OSS
- GitHub stars
- 4,421
- Last release
- 2025-12-12
- Last commit
- 2026-07-28
- First catalogued
- 2026-07-25
Strengths
- Genuinely differentiated retrieval — temporal knowledge graph plus an associative waypoint graph and a decay/reinforcement engine, not bare vector similarity
- True local-first default (SQLite, zero cloud dependency) with a documented upgrade path to a multi-user server
- Unusually broad shipped surface for a free project: Python and Node SDKs, REST API, MCP, CLI, and an official VS Code extension
- Built-in migration tooling from Mem0, Zep, and Supermemory lowers switching cost
- Point-in-time fact queries answer 'what did we believe on this date', which flat vector stores cannot
Watch out
- The README's first line still reads '🚧 This project is currently being rewritten. Expect breaking changes and potential bugs' — verified live 2026-07-25, and the rewrite branch exists; carded as needs-review for that reason
- Name collision: this is the independent CaviraOSS project, distinct from mem0's separately-branded 'OpenMemory MCP' that lives inside the mem0 repo — easy to conflate when searching
- The marketing site's footer claims MIT while the repo LICENSE is Apache-2.0; the repo is authoritative, and the discrepancy is a mild reliability flag for other site claims
- Release hygiene is loose — a prerelease-flagged v1.3.0 sits ahead of GitHub's 'latest' v1.2.3 while PyPI and npm shipped further versions with no matching tag
- Small maintainer footprint (a single primary author on releases and commits) for a project mid-rewrite — real bus-factor risk
Best for
- Self-hosted local-first agent memory that needs time-aware facts and point-in-time truth
- Teams wanting a free, no-lock-in alternative to Mem0, Zep, or Supermemory with a documented migration path
- VS Code, Claude Code, and Cursor users wanting an MCP-native memory tool
How it integrates
Benchmark results
No sourced results yet.
Sources
- Monthly card re-verification — GitHub API repo metadata: 4,397 stars, license Apache-2.0 confirmed, archived=false, last commit on the default branch 2026-07-28 (third-party)
- Repo metadata — 4,375 stars, Apache-2.0 confirmed against the LICENSE file, pushed 2026-07-22 (vendor)
- README — five-sector architecture, temporal KG, waypoint graph, and the live 'currently being rewritten' banner (vendor)
- Python SDK on PyPI — openmemory-py v1.3.2, latest release 2026-01-27 (vendor)
- Node SDK on npm — openmemory-js v1.3.3 (vendor)
- Official VS Code extension, published by the same maintainer (vendor)
- mem0's separately-branded OpenMemory MCP — confirms the name collision is real and this card is the CaviraOSS project (third-party)
Last verified 2026-08-01 · updated by refresh-framework-cards