Cairn Memory vs Hippo Memory
Bottom line
Cairn is deliberate, inspectable memory; Hippo is automatic long-term recall for coding agents.
Who it's for — Cairn suits people who want to save, inspect, correct and forget memories with source receipts. Hippo suits coding-agent users who want memories to surface across Cursor, Claude Code and Codex without issuing commands.
Who it's NOT for — Skip Cairn if you expect automatic capture; the local preview does not read your conversations. Skip Hippo if you do not want hooks written into agent settings.
One verifiable fact — 41 stars vs 790, both checked Nov 6, 2026 — about 19x apart.
Try / Skip — Try Cairn when you want receipts; try Hippo when you want recall without prompts. Skip Cairn for hands-off capture; skip Hippo if hooks are a dealbreaker.
 Cairn Memory |
 Hippo Memory |
|
|---|---|---|
| Stars | 45 checked Nov 13, 2026 | 792 checked Nov 13, 2026 |
| Source | github | github |
| First seen | Oct 9, 2026 | Oct 10, 2026 |
| Last seen | Nov 14, 2026 | Nov 14, 2026 |
| Licence | not held | not held |
| Last release | not held | not held |
Related
Sources
star counts as of Nov 6, 2026; Cairn README captured Oct 25, 2026; Hippo capture date not held.