# Compared with other approaches

> How a Geniffy memory differs from keeping chat history, from vector search over documents, and from the memory built into AI apps.

There are three common ways to give an AI some memory before reaching for a memory service. Each solves part of
the problem. This is what each one does, and where Geniffy differs.

## At a glance

| | Chat history in your database | Vector search over documents | Memory built into an AI app | Geniffy |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Learns facts from what people say | No, it keeps the messages | No, it keeps chunks of text | Yes | Yes |
| Keeps where each fact came from | The whole message | The chunk | Rarely shown | The exact line, who said it and when |
| Notices when something changed | No | No | Sometimes | Newer facts replace older ones; history is kept |
| Says when nothing is known | No | No, it returns the nearest match anyway | Varies | Yes, in words, so the model doesn't guess |
| One memory per person, kept apart | You build it | You build it | One person, one app | Spaces, one per user |
| Works across AI apps | No | No | Inside that app only | Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and Codex |
| Forget one person completely | You build it | You build it | Per app | One call |

## Chat history

Storing every message and sending the last few back is the simplest memory, and it is the right tool for
continuing one conversation. It stops working across conversations: the history grows past what a prompt can
hold, and nothing in it says which message is still true.

## Vector search over documents

Splitting documents into chunks and finding the nearest ones to a question (retrieval, or RAG) is good at
finding passages. It always returns something, even for a question nothing answers, and it doesn't know that a
newer sentence replaced an older one. Geniffy [reads documents](https://docs.geniffy.com/add-memories/files) too, and each fact it learns
keeps the line it came from and the date it is about.

## Memory built into an AI app

The memory inside a chat app learns about you, but stays in that app, and shows little about where a memory
came from. Geniffy is one memory that every app you connect shares, with the source of each fact.

## Where Geniffy fits

Use Geniffy when the same people come back and what they said earlier should shape what happens next: the facts,
who said them, when, and what changed since. Keep chat history for the conversation in front of you.

Source: https://docs.geniffy.com/overview/comparison