Zep review

Q: How do I install Zep?

Run pip install zep-cloud. It needs Node.js >=18.0.0. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

Zep is a managed context and agent memory platform, Zep Cloud, with SDKs, examples and framework integrations for building AI agents.

Updated Nov 1, 2026. Review written Oct 22, 2026 from the project's own sources; usage data refreshed every Monday.

TL;DR

Zep is a managed context layer that combines business data, documents and conversations into governed context that agents can retrieve. Zep is for developers adding memory or domain context to AI agents. Zep organizes that context in temporal Context Graphs and offers integrations for many agent frameworks. The getzep/zep repository holds examples and integrations, not the service itself.

5kGitHub stars
+14new stars, week of Oct 25
~259.5kdownloads a week, +7% vs 4-week avg
#30in RAG, data and memory this week

Zep at a glance

Category: RAG, data and memory
Maintained by: Zep (organization, @getzep on GitHub)
License: Apache 2.0
Language: Python, TypeScript, Go
Repository: github.com/getzep/zep
Website: help.getzep.com
npm package: @getzep/zep-cloud 4.0.1
PyPI package: zep-cloud 4.0.1
Latest release: @getzep/zep-cloud 4.0.1 on npm, Oct 20, 2026
First published: Apr 29, 2023

What Zep does

Zep combines business data, documents and conversations into shared, governed context that agents can retrieve.
Zep organizes context in temporal Context Graphs, served by the Context Lake on Konig, Zep's graph database service.
Zep provides official SDKs for Python, TypeScript/JavaScript and Go.
Zep ships integration packages for Google ADK, CrewAI, LangGraph, Pydantic AI, Mastra, Vercel AI SDK and other agent frameworks.
Zep includes zep-ingest, a bulk ingestion pipeline for Slack, documents, email, JSON/CSV and fact triples.
Zep offers governance features to control access to context, trace graph data to sources and review activity.
Zep includes memory benchmarks (LoCoMo, LongMemEval) and an evaluation harness for ingestion and retrieval.

How it works

Zep runs as a managed service, Zep Cloud. You sign up at getzep.com, install a Python, TypeScript or Go SDK, and send messages, threads, business data or documents into Context Graphs. Your agent then queries those graphs for context. Integration packages connect Zep to frameworks like LangGraph, CrewAI and Mastra. Plugins add Zep to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Claude Desktop and ChatGPT Work.

How to install and start using Zep

Python SDK with pip

pip install zep-cloud

TypeScript/JavaScript SDK with npm

npm install @getzep/zep-cloud

Go SDK

go get github.com/getzep/zep-go/v3

Requirements

A Zep Cloud account.
Python 3.10 or later, below 4.0, for the Python SDK.
Node.js 18.0.0 or later for the TypeScript SDK.

First steps

Sign up for Zep Cloud at www.getzep.com.
Install the official SDK for Python, TypeScript/JavaScript or Go.
Pick a quickstart in the docs: domain knowledge, agent memory, or customer and account context.
Add an integration package if you use a supported agent framework.

Who Zep is for

Developers adding long-term memory to AI agents built on frameworks like LangGraph, CrewAI or Mastra.
Teams that want agents to draw on business data, documents and chat history as one context.
Enterprises that need access control and source tracing for agent context.

Limitations to know

Zep Cloud is a managed service; the getzep/zep repository contains only examples, integrations and tools, not the product.
Zep Community Edition, the self-hosted version, is deprecated and unsupported.
For an open-source option, Zep points to Graphiti, its temporal knowledge graph framework, which is a separate project.

Is Zep growing? Usage data

In the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, Zep ranked #310 on the Devtoolwatch Board and #30 in RAG, data and memory, with a momentum score of 30 out of 100. Its main package had about 259.5k downloads that week, +7% against its own 4-week average.

New GitHub stars per week for the last 12 weeks, from GitHub's stargazer history (today's stargazers by the week they starred).

Show the weekly numbers

New GitHub stars per week for Zep
Week of	New stars
Aug 9, 2026	22
Aug 16, 2026	18
Aug 23, 2026	19
Aug 30, 2026	17
Sep 6, 2026	22
Sep 13, 2026	11
Sep 20, 2026	11
Sep 27, 2026	19
Oct 4, 2026	11
Oct 11, 2026	12
Oct 18, 2026	7
Oct 25, 2026	14

On Hacker News

Zep: Fast, scalable building blocks for production LLM apps, 104 points and 13 comments (Sep 22, 2023)
Show HN: Zep – pgvector-based memory store for LLM apps, 6 points and 0 comments (Aug 3, 2023)

The Board ranks tools by four signals each week: new stars, new stars for the repo's size, added downloads and download growth beyond the market. How the ranking works.

Zep alternatives

Other RAG, data and memory tools on the Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum:

RAG, data and memory ranked by momentum, the week of Oct 25–31, 2026
Rank	Tool	Stars	Downloads/wk
#1	XERJXERJ is a local-first search engine and MCP server for AI agents, packaged as one Rust binary with an Elasticsearch-compatible API.	17.9k	–
#2	MemvidMemvid is a single-file memory layer for AI agents that packages data, embeddings, search indexes, and metadata into one portable .mv2 file.	17.3k	–
#3	LEANNLEANN is a Python vector database and RAG library that recomputes embeddings on demand to keep indexes small on personal devices.	13.7k	–
#4	GraphifyGraphify is an AI coding assistant skill that turns a codebase, with its docs, PDFs, images and videos, into a queryable knowledge graph.	140k	480.7k
#5	MarkItDownMarkItDown is a lightweight Python utility from Microsoft that converts PDFs, Office documents, images, audio and other files to…	193.2k	4.7M
#6	FirecrawlFirecrawl is an API and open source project to search, scrape, crawl, and interact with web pages, returning LLM-ready markdown or JSON…	197.4k	2.9M

All RAG, data and memory tools, ranked

Recent Zep releases

integrations/adk/go/v1.0.0, Oct 14, 2026
zep-ingest-v0.4.0, Oct 14, 2026
zep-ingest-v0.3.0, Aug 28, 2026
zep-ingest-v0.2.1, Aug 19, 2026
zep-ingest-v0.2.0, Aug 12, 2026

Zep FAQ

Is Zep free and open source?

Yes. Zep's source code is on GitHub (getzep/zep) under the Apache 2.0 license, so you can use it for free.

How do I install Zep?

Run pip install zep-cloud. It needs Node.js >=18.0.0. The install section above has the other options from the project's README.

Is Zep still maintained?

Yes. The getzep/zep repository was last updated on Oct 20, 2026, and the latest release, @getzep/zep-cloud 4.0.1 on npm, came out on Oct 20, 2026.

How popular is Zep?

Zep has 5k GitHub stars as of Nov 1, 2026. It gained 14 new stars in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, against a 12-week average of 15 a week. Its main package had about 259.5k downloads that week, +7% against its own 4-week average. That made it #30 among RAG, data and memory tools on the Devtoolwatch Board.

What are the best alternatives to Zep?

Other RAG, data and memory tools on the Devtoolwatch Board in the week of Oct 25–31, 2026, by momentum: XERJ (#1), Memvid (#2), LEANN (#3), Graphify (#4), MarkItDown (#5). The alternatives table above has their numbers.

Is the getzep/zep repository the Zep product?

No. The getzep/zep repository contains example code, framework integrations and tools for Zep Cloud, Zep's managed agent memory platform. Using Zep requires signing up at getzep.com.

Can I self-host Zep?

Zep Community Edition is no longer supported, and its code has moved to the legacy folder. Zep points developers seeking open source to Graphiti, its open-source temporal knowledge graph framework.

Which agent frameworks does Zep integrate with?

Zep has Python packages for Google ADK, Microsoft Agent Framework, AutoGen, AG2, CrewAI, LangGraph, LiveKit, Pydantic AI and Strands Agents. TypeScript packages cover Google ADK, Mastra and Vercel AI SDK. Go covers Google ADK.

What is a Context Graph in Zep?

A Context Graph is a temporal graph where Zep organizes business data, documents and conversations as context agents can retrieve. The Context Lake manages and serves these graphs on Konig, Zep's graph database service.

How do I load existing data into Zep?

Zep provides zep-ingest, a bulk ingestion pipeline that handles Slack, documents, email, JSON/CSV and fact triples. The docs also cover adding messages, threads, business data and batch ingestion.

Sources

Zep README badge

Maintainers can show the tool's weekly Board rank in their README:

[![Devtoolwatch](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/badge/zep.svg)](https://index.devtoolwatch.com/tools/zep/)

How this page is made: Devtoolwatch writes each review from the project's README, releases, package metadata and website, with an AI model, then checks every claim against the source it cites and drops what the sources don't support. The numbers come from Devtoolwatch's daily GitHub snapshots, GitHub's stargazer history, and the npm and PyPI download APIs. Spotted an error? Email [email protected].