Glen vs Letta
Glen and Letta (formerly MemGPT) both give AI long-term memory, but they operate at different levels of the stack. Letta is an open-source, self-hostable agent framework where the agent itself manages memory through tool calls, using an OS-inspired hierarchy of context and storage tiers — you build and run stateful agents on the Letta runtime. Glen is shared memory for AI agents delivered as a single MCP tool, scoped to an organization so that every agent on a team reads from and writes to the same store, with no agent runtime to adopt. This comparison contrasts them honestly on scope, integration, MCP support, and the open-versus-managed tradeoff, so you can match the model to how your agents actually work.
How they compare
| Dimension | Glen | Letta |
|---|---|---|
| Memory scope | Org-shared by default: every agent in the organization reads and writes one store, so a fact one teammate's agent learns is available to all. | Per-agent memory the agent manages itself; sharing knowledge across a whole team is something you architect on top of the framework. |
| Integration model | MCP-native: a single glen tool any MCP client calls, with no agent runtime or framework to adopt. | An agent framework and runtime you build on; Letta also supports MCP for connecting tools, but the core model is running stateful agents on its platform. |
| Setup | Connect the MCP server once; new teammates inherit the org's existing memory, with no per-user store to seed. | Stand up the Letta server (self-hosted or managed) and build agents whose memory blocks they curate; powerful but more to operate. |
| Open vs managed | Managed, MCP-native shared memory you connect to rather than operate. | Open-source (Apache 2.0) and self-hostable, giving full control of data and infrastructure, with a managed cloud option too. |
Verdict
Letta is a strong choice when you want to build and own stateful agents end to end: it is open source, self-hostable, and its self-managing memory hierarchy is genuinely sophisticated for a single agent's continual learning. But if your goal is for a whole team's agents to share what they learn — without adopting an agent runtime — Glen is built for exactly that. It delivers org-scoped memory as one MCP-native tool, with read and write in a single round trip and no per-agent silos to stitch together. Choose Letta to engineer self-managing agents you host; choose Glen when the unit you care about is the organization and you want shared memory that drops into the MCP clients your team already uses.
FAQ
- Does Letta support MCP?
- Yes, Letta supports MCP for connecting tools to its agents. The difference is altitude: Letta is an agent framework and runtime you build on, while Glen is a single MCP tool that provides org-shared memory with no runtime to adopt.
- Is Glen open source like Letta?
- Letta is open source under Apache 2.0 and self-hostable. Glen is a managed, MCP-native shared-memory service you connect to rather than operate, optimized for getting a whole org's agents on one memory store quickly.