claude-mem alternative: Aletheia compared with claude-mem

Aletheia (aletheia-mem) is a free, local memory and rules hub for AI coding tools, and a possible claude-mem alternative if you want one store shared by several hosts. This page compares it with claude-mem, the larger and older project, and says where each one is ahead. Aletheia is not affiliated with or endorsed by the claude-mem authors or Anthropic.

Short answer

claude-mem is the bigger, more mature project. It has a far larger community, more features and more integrations. Choose it if Claude Code is your main host and you want its live viewer, its file read gate, its cloud sync option or its community.

Aletheia is a small alpha project. Choose it if you want one SQLite store that several hosts read over MCP, REST or the CLI, rules written once and synced into each host's own instruction file, and facts that record when they were true. Both projects run on your machine and both are Apache-2.0.

The two can run side by side. You can also copy your claude-mem memories into Aletheia.

Facts about claude-mem, fetched 2026-10-29

These numbers come from GitHub and from claude-mem's own documentation. They change over time, so check the sources.

• Licence: Apache-2.0. Source: gh api repos/thedotmack/claude-mem and the repository README, https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem, 2026-10-29.
• Repository created: 2025-08-31. Source: the same gh api call, 2026-10-29.
• Stars: 104,569. Forks: 9,229. Source: the same gh api call, 2026-10-29.
• Contributors: 297, counted from the pages of gh api repos/thedotmack/claude-mem/contributors (anonymous contributors are excluded), 2026-10-29.
• Latest release: v15.6.0, published 2026-10-29. Source: gh api repos/thedotmack/claude-mem/releases/latest.

For scale, the Aletheia repository's first commit is dated 2026-10-26 and its first release, 0.1.0, is dated 2026-10-27 (CHANGELOG).

Where claude-mem is ahead

Every item below is stated in claude-mem's documentation. Aletheia's status for the same item is in the second half of each line.

• Community and maturity. The numbers above are claude-mem's. Aletheia's repository is days old and has one maintainer. Its real-tool evidence comes from one user on one machine. See Status and limits.
• A live viewer. claude-mem's "My Work" page runs at the local worker URL, usually http://localhost:37777. It gathers recorded requests, progress and finished results and reads the saved memory database. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/usage/my-work.md, 2026-10-29. Aletheia has its own web interface, described in The dashboard. It is newer and has had less use.
• A file read gate. claude-mem blocks Claude Code from reading a whole code file of at least 32 KB when that file already has observations, and offers an outline or a line range instead. It is on by default and fails open. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/file-read-gate.md, 2026-10-29. Aletheia has a gate module (src/hub/smart-file.mjs) covered by tests. No hook or MCP tool calls it and it is off by default, so you cannot use it yet.
• Many integrations. The installation page lists Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenCode, Codex CLI, Antigravity CLI and OpenClaw, and the README adds T3 Code, Pi and DeepSeek Harness. Sources: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/installation.md and https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem, 2026-10-29. Aletheia has hook adapters for six hosts and MCP plus rules for a seventh. Hooks ran in real sessions of Claude Code (two days of use), Command Code (one short session) and Codex CLI (one interactive session), one user on one machine. See Tools overview.
• Cloud sync. claude-mem offers an optional, paid cloud sync through cmem.ai Pro. It replicates the memory database across your devices. Its docs warn that observation narratives and full prompt text go to the sync hub. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/cloud-sync.md, 2026-10-29. Aletheia Sync is self-hosted and free, and it has only been tested on loopback. See Sync.
• Vector search. claude-mem's search tool matches by meaning first and then by keywords when its Chroma vector index is running. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/usage/search-tools.md, 2026-10-29. In Aletheia, vectors need an optional package, so a default install searches by keyword only. See Search.
• More features around memory. Its introduction page lists knowledge agents, a mode system, 28 languages and folder context files. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/introduction, 2026-10-29. The README also lists TeamBrain, a shared workspace. Source: https://github.com/thedotmack/claude-mem, 2026-10-29. Aletheia has some counterparts, such as modes, an output-language setting, folder context files and a self-hosted team mode (Team mode). This page does not claim parity with any of them.

Where Aletheia differs

Each point is backed by Aletheia's code or README.

• A tool-neutral store. One SQLite store holds memories from every host, tagged with the host name. Any host reads it over MCP (stdio and HTTP), a REST API under /v1 or the CLI. Source: the interfaces table in the README.
• Rules sync to many instruction files. You write a rule once. aletheia rules sync writes it into the instruction file of each host in the registry, for example CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md, a Cursor .mdc file and a Windsurf rules file. The registry has ten entries ([src/hub/tools.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/hub/tools.mjs)). Your own text outside the managed block is left alone ([src/hub/rules-sync.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/hub/rules-sync.mjs)). claude-mem also writes CLAUDE.md files, but its docs describe them as folder context with activity timelines, not as rules you author. See Rules.
• MCP, REST and CLI. The MCP server exposes 13 tools, listed in MCP tools. The REST API and the CLI cover the same store.
• Facts with two time axes. A fact stores when it was valid (valid_from_epoch, valid_to_epoch) and when the hub recorded or expired it (recorded_at_epoch, expired_at_epoch). The fact_history tool answers "what was true on this date" with its as_of argument. Sources: [src/hub/store.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/hub/store.mjs) and [src/hub/mcp-tools.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/hub/mcp-tools.mjs). See Facts and contradictions.
• A benchmark gate. CI fails a change that loses more than one point of Recall@5 on a seeded synthetic corpus ([bench/gate.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/bench/gate.mjs), workflow). It runs on Linux only. See Benchmarks.
• Loopback only by default. The server binds 127.0.0.1 unless you set ALETHEIA_HOST. A non-loopback bind turns on a login ([src/config.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/config.mjs), [src/server.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/server.mjs)).
• No telemetry. The README states there is no account, no telemetry and no network call unless you configure a model provider. A text search of src/ and bin/ for telemetry, analytics, PostHog and Sentry finds only a comment that says "No telemetry". claude-mem's docs say its anonymous usage analytics are on by default and can be turned off with npx claude-mem telemetry disable. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/telemetry.md, 2026-10-29.

Measured numbers

Retrieval only. The numbers show whether the evidence for a question is in the top five results. They are not answer accuracy, and answer accuracy is not measured.

On the LoCoMo dataset, 1,536 questions with gold evidence, raw dialogue turns stored as memories:

All three rows are measured-by-us. Re-run the Aletheia rows with bun scripts/compare-bench.mjs. The command reads the JSON files in bench/results/2026-10-26/ and needs no network. The claude-mem row comes from the README table and from bench/claude-mem-baseline.mjs. Benchmarks has every command and the full table.

Read these numbers with five caveats.

1. The claude-mem run used version 15.2.0. The latest release on 2026-10-29 is v15.6.0, and the number was not re-run on it.
2. claude-mem is built to ingest through its language-model observer. The baseline saved raw turns through its save endpoint, which is the closest model-free equivalent. A run through the observer could score differently.
3. claude-mem's docs say its semantic matching uses Chroma only when the index is running. The committed files do not record whether it was running. Source: https://docs.claude-mem.ai/usage/search-tools.md, 2026-10-29.
4. The raw output of the claude-mem run is not committed in bench/results/. The README row records Recall@5, MRR and latency, and scripts/compare-bench.mjs does not print it.
5. The Aletheia hybrid row needs the optional embeddings package. Latency numbers are not like for like. Aletheia's figure is the mean time of the in-process ranking call, and it leaves out the time to embed the question. claude-mem's figure is an HTTP request to its worker, with p50 1,699 ms and p95 2,824 ms over 40 idle queries.

Using both

Aletheia and claude-mem can run side by side. They use separate data directories, ~/.aletheia and ~/.claude-mem by default, and separate ports. Aletheia never writes to claude-mem's database. The importer opens it read-only with PRAGMA query_only ([src/hub/importers.mjs](https://github.com/mohamed-ashraf-elsaed/aletheia-mem/blob/main/src/hub/importers.mjs)).

claude-mem describes itself as injecting relevant context into future sessions (the repository description, 2026-10-29), and Aletheia's SessionStart hook for Claude Code prints a context block. If both are installed on one host, expect two context blocks. This page does not claim a tested combination. Run aletheia install claude-code without --write first to see every file it would change.

Migrating

To copy your claude-mem memories into Aletheia, run:

aletheia import claude-mem

The command reads observations, session summaries and prompts and adds them to the hub. Add --path <db> for a database in another place and --no-prompts to skip prompts. The step-by-step guide is Migrate from claude-mem.

Licence and attribution

Aletheia is Apache-2.0. A few files come from claude-mem 15.2.0, also Apache-2.0: the optional legacy viewer, two skill prompts, some scripts and one derived module. NOTICE.md lists each file and the change made.

Next steps

• Migrate from claude-mem - copy your memories into the hub.
• Benchmarks - every command behind the numbers on this page.
• Memory tools compared - Aletheia against Mem0, Zep, Supermemory and Basic Memory.
• Status and limits - what has and has not been checked.