claude-mem vs Google Agent Development Kit (ADK)
A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.
claude-mem Agents | Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | Persistent, cross-agent memory for Claude Code and other coding assistants | Google's open-source framework for building, evaluating, and deploying production AI agents |
| Category | Agents | Agents |
| Pricing | Freemium· Pro: ? · Team Cloud: $333 | Free· Framework itself is free and open-source (Apache 2.0). Costs come from the underlying model provider (e.g. Gemini API / Vertex AI usage) and any hosting infrastructure (Cloud Run, GKE, Agent Engine). |
| Model | Model-agnostic — works with the models used by the connected agent (Claude, GPT, Gemini, etc.) via MCP | Gemini (default) plus Claude, GPT-4/5, Llama, and other providers via LiteLLM |
| Editorial score | — | — |
| Use cases | Persistent memory for Claude Code sessionsCross-IDE context sharing via MCPSemantic search over past agent decisionsTeam knowledge routing between engineersRecording architectural decisions and dead endsSelf-hosted local memory store for coding agentsMobile dashboard for agent activityScoped per-project agent memory | Multi-agent research assistantCustomer support triage agentRAG chatbot backed by Vertex AI SearchCode review and refactoring agentBigQuery natural-language analytics agentDocument processing pipelineVoice/streaming conversational agentInternal tool-use agent orchestrating APIsEvaluation and regression testing of LLM workflowsEnterprise workflow automation on Agent Engine |
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| Website | cmem.ai | google.github.io |
Pick claude-mem if
- ✅ Open-source core (Apache-2.0) means the memory engine can be self-hosted and audited
- ✅ Cross-agent by design via MCP — memories carry across Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other MCP clients
- ✅ Offline-first with a local vector store, so nothing has to leave the machine unless cloud sync is enabled
- ✅ Structured capture of observations, decisions, and dead ends is more useful than raw transcript logging
Pick Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) if
- ✅ Genuinely open-source (Apache 2.0) with active Google engineering behind it, not a hosted-only product
- ✅ Multi-language: first-class Python, Java, and Go SDKs — rare among agent frameworks that are usually Python-only
- ✅ Built-in dev UI (`adk web`) with trace inspection, event stream, and session replay speeds up debugging enormously
- ✅ Model-agnostic via LiteLLM — Gemini is default but Claude, GPT, and local models plug in cleanly