Cortex Plugin vs MCP Obsidian

In-depth architectural comparison of the Cortex Plugin and MCP Obsidian 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.

Which MCP Server Should You Choose?

Choose Cortex Plugin 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 have access to required keys: MEMEM_TELEMETRY_SOURCE.
• Primary tools included: Event-triggered background miner extracting durable lessons from conversations, Stores memories as markdown files in a local Obsidian vault, Active Memory Slice assembling query-tailored context briefings.

Explore Cortex Plugin Details

Choose MCP Obsidian 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).
• Primary tools included: Local stdio MCP access to an Obsidian vault, Note reading, writing, patching, moving, and deletion, Multi-word search with BM25 reranking.

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	Cortex Plugin TT-Wang Knowledge & Memory	MCP Obsidian bitbonsai Knowledge & Memory
Summary	Persistent, self-evolving memory plugin for Claude Code. Background miner extracts durable lessons (decisions, conventions, bug fixes) from completed sessions via Claude Haiku, stores them as human-readable markdown in an Obsidian vault, and assembles query-tailored context briefings at session start. Local-first, no cloud, no API keys. Self-healing install via uv bootstrap shim, /cortex-doctor preflight, graceful FTS-only degraded mode when claude CLI missing. MIT.	Universal AI bridge for Obsidian vaults using MCP. Provides safe read/write access to notes with 11 comprehensive methods for vault operations including search, batch operations, tag management, and frontmatter handling. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, and any MCP-compatible AI assistant.

Tools & Capabilities Breakdown

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).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tt-wang-cortex-plugin": {
      "command": "pipx",
      "args": [
        "install",
        "memem"
      ],
      "env": {
        "MEMEM_TELEMETRY_SOURCE": "YOUR_MEMEM_TELEMETRY_SOURCE_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bitbonsai-mcp-obsidian": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/inspector"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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