Different Kinds of Memory

Pieces and Screenpipe both help you remember things, but in fundamentally different ways. Pieces remembers what you explicitly save — code snippets, links, files from your IDE and browser extension. It's like a smart clipboard with AI context. Screenpipe remembers everything that happened on your screen and in your microphone — automatically, continuously, without any manual action. The Stack Overflow answer you glanced at, the Slack message with deploy instructions, the Figma design review, the terminal output that scrolled by. They solve different problems at different scales.

The 'I Forgot to Save It' Problem

With Pieces, you need to actively save or use an integrated tool for context to be captured. The problem: the things you most need to recall later are often the things you didn't think to save in the moment. That error message that flashed by in the terminal. What your teammate said on the Zoom call about the migration strategy. The API key you saw in a Notion doc. Screenpipe captures all of this passively — you never need to think about saving. When you need it later, it's there.

Beyond Code: Your Whole Workday

Developers don't just write code. You read documentation in browsers, discuss architecture on Slack, review PRs on GitHub, join standups on Zoom, check monitoring dashboards, read emails with requirements. Pieces excels at code context within your IDE. Screenpipe captures everything else too — every app, every window, every spoken word. When you need to recall 'what exactly did the PM say about that feature in yesterday's meeting?', only Screenpipe has that.

Where Pieces Shines

Pieces has genuinely excellent IDE integration. The VS Code and JetBrains plugins are polished and useful. The snippet management — saving, tagging, organizing, and resurfacing code — is well-executed. The on-device AI copilot understands your recent coding context and can help within your editor. If your primary need is a smart, AI-powered snippet manager that lives in your IDE, Pieces does that better than Screenpipe. The free tier is generous enough for individual developers.

Using Both Together

Many developers use both tools. Pieces for its excellent snippet management and IDE copilot — saving and organizing the code patterns you use often. Screenpipe for total recall of everything else — meetings, browser research, chat conversations, screen history. Screenpipe's MCP server means your AI coding assistant (Cursor, Claude Code) can query your entire screen history for context, while Pieces manages your active code snippets. They're complementary, not competing.