Comparison · figures as of 5 September 2026
knowmind vs. cognee
cognee is the comparison we take most seriously, because the overlap is largest: cognee is a European company (Berlin) and also works with bitemporal data. Both products keep what an agent learns as structured facts with validity dates.
What cognee offers
cognee is open source and can be self-hosted at no license cost. The hosted service has a “free forever” tier with 1 million tokens and one workspace, then charges $2.50 per 1 million tokens; an Enterprise BYOC option exists. If your usage is small or bursty, token-based pricing can be very cheap, and if you want to run the pipeline yourself, the open source route is there.
What knowmind offers
knowmind is an operated service with flat pricing: Pro at €15 per month or €150 per year, free tier with 2,500 memories, no token accounting. Every fact carries provenance and a required confidence level, corrections are handled bitemporally without overwriting, and the access log is hash-chained and externally timestamped (RFC 3161). The service is operated in Germany on Hetzner (Nuremberg), with a public Art. 28 data processing agreement, a published subprocessor list, and tenant isolation. There is no self-hosted edition; an on-premise option exists in the Enterprise tier (from €1,000 per month).
How to choose
Pick cognee if you want open source, token-based pricing, or your own pipeline. Pick knowmind if you want a fixed price you can budget, an operator who is contractually responsible, and an audit trail you can hand to a customer or reviewer. Both companies are European. What separates them is the operating model: framework and tokens on one side, an operated service with a published DPA and flat tiers on the other.
| Free tier | First paid tier | Self-hosting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| cognee | 1M tokens, 1 workspace | $2.50 per 1M tokens | yes |
| knowmind | 2,500 memories | €15/month | no (Enterprise on-premise option) |
cogneeprices and tiers were taken from the vendor's public pricing page on 5 September 2026; knowmind's own figures come from knowmind.de/pricing and our product documentation. If you find something outdated, tell us and we will correct it.
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