Updated May 2026
ChatGPT Memory is OpenAI's built-in personalisation feature, included with the ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo) and ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo) plans and partially available on the Free tier. It stores facts the model considers worth remembering across all your ChatGPT conversations, plus a "Custom Instructions" block of about 4,500 characters that you edit manually.
It is closed by design: memories live inside OpenAI's product, you cannot export them in any structured format, and the only way to reach them is to keep using ChatGPT. There is no API, no SDK, no MCP server. The model decides what to save and when to drop something — there is no priority system you can edit. And because there is no structured export, anything the model drops — or that changes when OpenAI updates the product — is gone, with no backup of your own.
Alma is a persistent memory layer for AI. It is not tied to one chat product: the same memory account powers the Alma web app, a VSCode extension, an MCP server for Claude Desktop / Cursor / Windsurf / Claude Code, a JavaScript SDK and a REST API. Three intelligence tiers via Anthropic Claude (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus 4.7 with 1M-token context).
Memory is structured into three layers — memories (facts and preferences), episodes (conversation summaries) and procedures (learned workflows) — and scored by five factors (relevance, importance, confidence, recency, frequency). On top sits the Soul Engine, a structured identity system with versioned blocks for personality, expertise, communication style, rules and context. Paid plans start at $14/mo (Starter) with full Soul Engine access; Pro and Max are unlimited.
The biggest difference is ownership. ChatGPT Memory is part of ChatGPT — when OpenAI changes the product, your memories change with it. Alma's memory lives in your account, exports in JSON / PDF / DOCX / XLSX at any time, and is fully editable. You can read every memory, correct any factual mistake, delete what you no longer want, bulk-import from a CSV or migrate from another tool.
Capacity is the second difference. ChatGPT Memory is fixed at roughly 1,200–1,400 words total, regardless of plan. Alma's paid plans store unlimited memories — structured facts, not a fixed word budget.
Retrieval is the third. ChatGPT decides internally what context to surface — there is no search, no scoring you can inspect, no "show me everything you know about this project". Alma exposes a hybrid search (semantic vector + keyword), filters by category and date, and displays the score breakdown for any query result. When you change something in your memory, you can see exactly what the AI will pull on the next conversation.
ChatGPT exposes a single Custom Instructions text box (~4,500 chars). It is one prompt, edited as one blob, and gets diluted in long conversations. The Soul Engine in Alma is structured: 13 blocks across identity, worldview, personality, expertise, communication style, anti-patterns, rules and context, organised into XML sections, versioned and always injected with priority. Each block is independently editable; you can swap personality without touching expertise, or carry the same identity across different Environments while changing the Soul context per project.
| Feature | ChatGPT Memory | Alma |
|---|---|---|
| Memory capacity | ~1,400 words (fixed) | Unlimited on every paid plan |
| Memory control | Model-decided, no priority editing | Full CRUD, categories, importance scoring, hybrid search |
| Memory architecture | Flat key-value | 3-layer (memories + episodes + procedures) |
| Backup and durability | No user-side backup or structured export | Independent storage, full export at any time |
| Cross-platform | ChatGPT only | Web, MCP (Claude Desktop / Cursor / Windsurf), VSCode, SDK, REST API |
| LLM models | OpenAI only | Anthropic Claude Haiku / Sonnet / Opus 4.7 (1M) |
| AI identity | Custom Instructions (~4,500 chars, single prompt) | Soul Engine — 13 versioned blocks across identity, personality, expertise, rules |
| Search | None | Hybrid (semantic + keyword) with multi-factor scoring |
| Data export | Limited (transcript dump) | Full GDPR export — JSON, PDF, DOCX, XLSX, .alma archive |
| Paid plan from | $20/mo (ChatGPT Plus) | $14/mo (Starter), $29/mo (Pro), $99/mo (Max) |
ChatGPT Plus is $20/mo; ChatGPT Pro is $200/mo. Memory is bundled with both — you cannot subscribe to Memory alone or take it elsewhere. Alma's Starter plan is $14/mo with unlimited memories and Sonnet + Haiku, Pro is $29/mo and adds Opus 4.7 with 1M-token context plus unlimited environments, and Max is $99/mo with the largest monthly budget. Every paid plan includes the REST API, MCP server, VSCode extension and JavaScript SDK, and BYOK works on every plan, including Free. Annual billing on every paid plan is "pay 10 months, get 12".
Cross-tool coding session. A developer chats with ChatGPT to architect a new feature, then switches to Cursor to write the code. With ChatGPT Memory, the architectural decisions stay in ChatGPT — Cursor sees nothing. With Alma + MCP, Cursor reads the same memory account, so the agent already knows the architecture, the conventions and the constraints from the morning chat. No re-explaining, no copy-paste.
Multi-week research project. A researcher asks ChatGPT dozens of questions over four weeks. Around week three ChatGPT silently drops earlier facts to make room — the user only notices when the AI starts contradicting things it knew last week. Alma's Starter plan ($14/mo) covers months of comparable usage on its monthly budget; Pro and Max raise that budget and the consolidator merges duplicates instead of dropping them.
Migration moment. A user wants to leave ChatGPT for Claude Desktop. With ChatGPT Memory, the context stays trapped — exports give you transcripts, not structured memories, and there is no way to inject them into Claude. With Alma, export from ChatGPT, import into Alma (preview, dedup, commit), connect Alma's MCP server to Claude Desktop — the AI in your new chat tool starts already knowing you.
ChatGPT Memory is the right call if (a) you only ever use ChatGPT, (b) the casual "ChatGPT remembers I like brevity" experience covers your use case, and (c) you do not need an export, an API or a way to take your context to other tools. For light personal usage tied to one product, it is included and frictionless.
Choose Alma if any of the following apply: you use more than one AI tool (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VSCode, Windsurf), you have already hit ChatGPT's memory cap or lost memories to a wipe, you need a structured AI identity beyond a 4,500-character text blob, you want to inspect or edit what the AI knows, or you need full export for compliance / portability reasons. The Starter plan ($14/mo) is the entry point — its monthly budget covers months of real usage with no per-feature caps.
Alma's Import workflow accepts ChatGPT exports directly: download your ChatGPT data archive, drop it into Settings → Import, and Alma extracts memories from your conversations using the same extraction pipeline that powers live chat. The import has SSE progress, a preview-before-commit step and semantic dedup against your existing memories. No manual copy-paste, no rewrites.
Does Alma replace ChatGPT? No — they coexist. Alma is the memory layer; you can still use ChatGPT or Claude or Cursor for the chat itself. With the MCP server, your Alma memories show up inside MCP-compatible clients automatically.
Can I keep using ChatGPT Memory and Alma at the same time? Yes. Many users do exactly that for a transition period. Export from ChatGPT, import into Alma, and run both for a few weeks until you trust the migration.
Is Alma GDPR compliant? Yes — by design. Right to access, right to portability, right to deletion and consent flows are native. Export everything in one click; delete your account and all data with another click.
Will Alma's memory ever be wiped? No. Memory is stored in your account and exported in your control at any time. We never wipe memories without explicit user action; the only automatic lifecycle event is consolidation of duplicate memories into a single canonical entry.
ChatGPT Memory is fine for casual personalisation tied to one product. Alma is the right call when you need real capacity, structured AI identity, full export and the same memory across every AI tool you use. The Starter plan ($14/mo) is the entry point — try it, see if your context survives, and decide. The migration path from ChatGPT to Alma is one click in Settings → Import.