Wend vs Monica HQ (2026)
Two ways to keep the people you know. What decides it is what an AI assistant may change once it is connected.
Quick verdict
Disclosed: we make Wend. If owning the server is your first requirement, Monica is the right answer and nothing below changes that. Weigh two things first: nine commits in the 52 weeks before 2026-08-06 with the stable branch untouched since May 2024, and no shipped MCP server we could find, so your assistant cannot read it. Buy Wend if you want the remembering to happen without typing. Our engine is AGPLv3 and readable; the product around it is not, and there is no self-host build.
Published by Wend. Competitor claims come from their own material, with the date we checked them.
Wend, measured
92
people from one WhatsApp read, before you grant a single permission.
0.63s
to read 69,000 messages and find the people in them. No model call.
2.4s
for one extraction on the Mac itself, at no cost.
Measured on a real Mac running macOS 26.4.1. On-device extraction needs Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on.
Side by side
| Dimension | Wend | Monica HQ |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A private memory of the people you know, on your own Mac, read by whichever AI you use. It builds itself from what the machine holds, keeps a source on every fact, and plans your day around the people in it. | An open-source personal relationship manager you can self-host for free: a deliberately manual journal of the people in your life, with no AI anywhere near it. |
| Pricing | $29/mo or $290/yr, flat at any network size | Free self-hosted, about $90/year hosted (checked 2026-08-06) |
| Free tier | None. One price, and nothing is deleted if you stop paying | Yes, if you run it yourself |
| Availability | A Mac app. Cursor, Claude Code and other local agents connect automatically; Claude, ChatGPT and anything that speaks MCP points at one link. Google sign-in only | Shipping: open source plus hosted. Nine commits in the last 52 weeks; stable branch untouched since May 2024 |
| Who controls it | A managed service. Full export whenever you want, self-serve deletion | You, completely. Your server, your database, AGPL source |
| Source code | The engine is AGPLv3 as wend-core. The hosted product is not, and there is no self-host build | Fully open source, 25,000 stars, self-hostable |
| Project activity | Shipping continuously | Nine commits in 52 weeks; stable branch untouched since May 2024 (checked 2026-08-06) |
| How facts arrive | Proposed by your agent from mail, calendar, files and conversations. You approve | You type them into forms |
| Your day | Tasks, and a day laid out around the meetings in your Google Calendar, with the reason on every block | Reminders and activities you enter yourself |
| Assistant access | Connects Cursor, Claude Code and VS Code automatically; any MCP client, Claude and ChatGPT included, points at the same link | Discussed for v3; none shipped that we could find (checked 2026-08-06) |
| AI | AI proposes, a person approves, every inference is logged and exportable | None, by design, which for many people is exactly the point |
| Cost | $29/mo or $290/yr, flat at any network size | $0 self-hosted plus your time, or about $90/year hosted |
Competitor facts and pricing last checked August 2026, from published vendor material. Verify on each vendor’s site.
Who should pick which
Pick Wend if…
- You want the upkeep to disappear rather than be tidier.
- You want your own assistant to answer questions about your network.
- You want a source under each fact and disagreements surfaced rather than overwritten.
- You do not want to run and patch a server for the next decade, and reading the engine's source is enough for you.
Pick Monica HQ if…
- Owning the software and the server is a hard requirement.
- You want no AI near your relationship data, which is a coherent position.
- Free, on your own hardware, beats convenience.
- You genuinely enjoy deliberate, manual journaling about people.
The argument, in order
Monica holds 25,000 GitHub stars for a tool where you type every fact in by hand. Read that as data: tens of thousands of people wanted this badly enough to do it the hardest way.
So demand was never what this category lacked. Friction was, and it sat in the form factor rather than the design. Every product asked you to open one more app and feed it, and better design never removed that habit.
The agent is the first interface that removes it. You open your assistant several times a day already, so capture and recall happen inside a conversation you were having anyway.
Monica answers the same problem with control: your server, your database, AGPL source, no AI near any of it. Wend answers it with a different mechanism, where the remembering happens without you typing and every fact records where it came from. Both are real positions.
Wend vs Monica HQ: FAQ
Is Wend open source like Monica?
Partly. The engine is AGPLv3 as wend-core: the graph schema, the propose-and-confirm write path, provenance and recall, which is the mechanism we ask you to trust. The product around it is not open and there is no self-host build. If running it yourself is the requirement, Monica is the honest recommendation.
Is Monica still actively maintained?
Check the repository rather than taking our word. As of 2026-08-06: nine commits in the previous 52 weeks, stable branch untouched since May 2024. It has 25,000 stars and a real community, so that can change. Worth knowing before you put a decade of history into it.
Can my assistant read Monica?
Not as of August 2026, as far as we could find. An MCP server has been discussed for version 3 and nothing is shipped. Wend was built the other way around: the assistant is the interface, and the Mac app is where you review what it proposed.
What do Monica and Wend cost?
Monica is free self-hosted and about $90/year hosted (checked 2026-08-06, verify at monicahq.com). Wend is $29/mo or $290/yr, flat. Both keep your data close: Monica because you run the server, Wend because the graph is a file on your Mac.
A digital brain for the people in your life.
It installs on your Mac, builds the graph out of what is already there, and answers from the AI you already use. Every fact keeps its source. $29 a month, flat at any network size.
Access is invite only right now.