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Agent Memory vs.
agent databases

Agent databases. HelixDB, HydraDB and ReasonDB pair a graph store with a vector store.
The gap. Two stores in one box are still two stores.
SurrealDB. Graph, vector, document and structured data in one engine and one transaction.

THE LANDSCAPE

Built for agents, assembled from parts

HelixDB

A Rust graph-vector database with its own query language and MCP support. Strong developer experience; no native document model or enterprise governance.

HydraDB

Memory infrastructure with context evolution tracking. Graph and vector are separate substrates, with no transaction across them.

ReasonDB

A document database with LLM-guided tree traversal in place of flat chunks. Novel retrieval; no graph model and no temporal versioning.

THE COMPARISON

Two stores in one box are still two stores. Where the agent databases stop, and where Agent Memory carries on.

Data and transactions

Agent Memory

Agent databases

ACID across models
One transactionGraph, vector, document and time commit together, or not at all.
Two commitsThe graph store and the vector store commit separately.
Document model
Full documentsSchema-validated documents; an edge is a full document with fields of its own.
Nodes and edgesEvery record is a node or an edge; the document is somewhere else.
Operations
Governance
In the databaseRow and field-level permissions, JWT auth and tenant isolation, enforced by the engine.
In the applicationAccess control lives in the application code around the store.
Storage
SeparatedCompute apart from storage: scale to zero, instant branching, built-in recovery.
CoupledCompute and storage scale together, on the same nodes.

THE ALTERNATIVE

One engine, one transaction

HOW IT WORKS

One commit for the fact and the state. A graph write, a vector and a document change land together, or not at all.

1BEGIN TRANSACTION;
2
3-- The decision, the memory of it and the relationship, in one commit
4UPDATE order:1042 SET status = "refunded";
5
6RELATE agent:support->remembers->customer:acme SET
7 fact = "Prefers a refund to store credit",
8 embedding = fn::embed("prefers refund over credit"),
9 source = ticket:8812,
10 valid_from = time::now();
11
12COMMIT TRANSACTION;

TRUSTED BY

Enterprise teams building on SurrealDB

Agent databases,answered

Agent Memory is built into SurrealDB, where documents, graphs, vectors and time-series are native primitives under one ACID transaction. Agent databases run separate graph and vector substrates without a transaction across them or enterprise governance.

THE PLATFORM

Everything an application and its agents know. Five surfaces, one engine.

IN PRODUCTION

Trusted at scale. Samsung, Nvidia, Verizon, Tencent, and Walmart run on SurrealDB.

14,000+

Developers building on SurrealDB Cloud

4M+

Developers building on SurrealDB worldwide

FROM THE TEAMS

SurrealDB gives us a foundation where we can unify semantic search, knowledge graphs, and AI-driven decision making without stitching together multiple systems. Collapsing responsibility into SurrealDB has become our default engineering posture.
Justin Foley

VP of Engineering, Later

GET STARTED

Build on proven foundations. Both run on one engine. The database is a free account away. Agent Memory is open to the waitlist.

ISO 27001
AICPA SOC 2 Type 2
Cyber Essentials
GDPR
Cyber Essentials Plus
SurrealDB

The context and memory layer for AI agents

Database. Graphs, vectors, documents and relational data in one engine, in a single ACID transaction.
Agent Memory. Connects and retrieves context wherever your data lives, every fact carrying its source.
Cloud. Fully managed, in the cloud provider and region you choose.

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