Honcho: what it remembers, who owns it, and what it costs
thecontinuitylayer.com/memory-systems/honchoAn open-source memory server for stateful agents built around workspaces, peers and sessions, with background reasoning that builds user models; also offered as Honcho Cloud.
- 1Yes
Is Honcho open source?
Yes, by Plastic Labs's own page.
Open source under AGPL-3.0.
Yes means: The core is under an open-source license.
- 2Yes
Can you run Honcho yourself?
Yes, by Plastic Labs's own page.
The server self-hosts with Docker Compose or manually on PostgreSQL with its vector extension; the cloud runs the same open-source server.
Yes means: It runs on your own machine or server.
- 3Partly
Can you take your memory out of Honcho?
Partly, by Plastic Labs's own page.
Self-hosted data lives in your Postgres or another supported vector store; the docs index has an import guide from Mem0 but no export endpoint.
Yes means: An export, or the data sits in a standard store you own.
- 4Yes
Does Honcho work with more than one model provider?
Yes, by Plastic Labs's own page.
OpenAI by default, plus Anthropic, Gemini and OpenAI-compatible endpoints such as OpenRouter, Together, vLLM and Ollama; models must support tool calling.
Yes means: It is not tied to one provider's models.
- 5Yes
Is there a hosted Honcho?
Yes, by Plastic Labs's own page.
Honcho Cloud is described as the quickest way to use it in production; an instance turns on after a payment method is added.
Yes means: A cloud or managed option exists.
- 6Partly
Does Honcho have a free tier, and what is the entry price?
Partly, by Plastic Labs's own page.
No free tier is stated; pricing is usage-based (ingestion per million tokens, reasoning per query), with startup credits. The prices appear on the homepage, not a pricing page.
Yes means: A free tier exists and the entry paid price is published.
- 7Yes
Does Honcho scope memory per user and per session?
Yes, by Plastic Labs's own page.
Workspaces isolate use cases; peers (users or agents) and sessions are many-to-many; scopes group sessions to limit recall.
Yes means: Both per-user and per-session or per-agent memory are supported.
- 8Partly
Can you delete a user's memories from Honcho?
Partly, by Plastic Labs's own page.
Peers and individual messages cannot be deleted; clearing a user means deleting every session plus the peer's remaining conclusions, or deleting the whole workspace.
Yes means: A documented way to delete everything for one user.
What these grades say about continuity, and what they do not.
Every grade on this site is read from the maker's own pages. The Continuity Framework asks five things of any system that carries state: that it carry, govern, evolve, prove and forget. These tests reach carry, govern and forget; they do not reach evolve or prove, which no maker's page documents in a gradeable way. A high letter is a good memory system, not a continuity layer.
- M1 Open sourceCarry
- Open source means the memory engine can outlive the vendor; the state is not hostage to a contract.
- M2 Self-hostCarry
- Self-hosting puts the store under the owner's control, which is the precondition for every other obligation.
- M3 ExportCarry
- An export is question C3: can the state leave in a form another system reads? A standard store you own answers it; a proprietary dump only partly.
- M4 Any modelCarry
- Working with more than one model provider is question C2: the memory, not the model, holds the state.
- M7 ScopingGovern
- Scoping per user, agent and session is question G2: who may read and write each item. It is the floor of governance, not the ceiling.
- M8 DeleteForget
- A documented delete for one user is rung 5 of the erasure ladder: the record leaves the store. Derived memories, the index and backups are not covered unless the maker says so. Rung 5 of the erasure ladder: delete the record.
License as stated: AGPL-3.0. Every grade above is read from Plastic Labs's own page on the day shown. If a page has changed, tell us.