In-depth architectural comparison of the Iai Personal Memory Engine and Deja Vu MCP servers. Compare execution transports, security boundaries, tool capabilities, quality scores, and ready-to-paste client installation snippets for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.
At a Glance & Executive Verdict
Iai Personal Memory Engine
Knowledge & Memory · Local stdio
Quality: 67/100 (Great) | Auth: No auth required
Deja Vu
Knowledge & Memory · Local stdio
Quality: 56/100 (Good) | Auth: No auth required
Verdict Summary: Choose Iai Personal Memory Engine if you need specialized Knowledge & Memory tools running via a local process. Choose Deja Vu if your workspace requires Knowledge & Memory integration with local subprocess execution. Both servers can be configured concurrently in your client's mcpServers manifest.
Which MCP Server Should You Choose?
Choose Iai Personal Memory Engine when:
You need dedicated capabilities in the Knowledge & Memory domain.
You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).
You need dedicated capabilities in the Knowledge & Memory domain.
You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).
Primary tools included: Zero-dependency single binary, fully local operation, Search 3.5 GB of session history in ~1.5 ms, Supports multiple coding agents via MCP protocol.
Local memory daemon for any MCP-over-stdio client with three-tier storage (episodic/semantic/procedural). Own SQLite + hnswlib store (Hippo) with bge-small-en-v1.5, MIT-licensed community-detection reranking (MOSAIC), and sleep-cycle consolidation. AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest, no telemetry. Verbatim recall >=99% and post-contradiction Rescue@10 1.000 at honest scale. Ambient capture via shell hooks. Windows support in beta.
Local memory layer over the session histories coding agents already write (Claude Code, Codex CLI, opencode): lexical search, recall tools, session-start auto-recall, secret redaction at index time, cross-machine sync over SSH.
Category & Scope
Tools & Capabilities Breakdown
Iai Personal Memory Engine Tools (9)
memory_recall
Cue-based recall — returns hits **and anti-hits**: memories that *contradict* the cue surface next to the ones that match, so a stale fact can't masquerade as current.
memory_temporal_recall
Time-anchored recall — *"what did I say about pricing in May?"*
memory_recall_structural
Retrieve by the *shape* of a memory (the HD substrate), not just its embedding.
memory_search
Plain text search over the store.
memory_capture
Write a memory explicitly (ambient capture normally does this for you).
Ready-to-Paste Client Configurations
Paste either (or both) of these JSON server blocks into your client config file (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json).
Iai Personal Memory Engine is categorized under Knowledge & Memory and uses a local stdio subprocess. In contrast, Deja Vu belongs to Knowledge & Memory using local stdio subprocess. Select Iai Personal Memory Engine when you need capabilities focused on knowledge & memory and Deja Vu when you require tools for knowledge & memory.
Record that a fact changed. The old version is archived, not erased — both stay retrievable. That's the Rescue@10 and historical-verbatim story in the [benchmarks](#benchmarks).
memory_reinforce
Strengthen a memory's recall pathways.
memory_consolidate
Run a consolidation pass now instead of waiting for idle.
profile_get_set
The eleven sealed procedural knobs the engine learns about you.
Deja Vu Tools (6)
Zero-dependency single binary, fully local operation