Dust is the most direct comparison on this list — both Dust and Agently connect to your company's data and put AI agents to work on top of it. The difference is philosophy. Dust is a platform for building custom AI agents grounded in your data — flexible, powerful, and builder-oriented. Agently is a turnkey company brain with one orchestrator, Jarvis, that runs work out of the box. Dust hands you a toolkit to assemble assistants; Agently hands you a brain and an agent that already knows how to act.
Neither is "better." They're aimed at different teams. Here's how to tell which one is yours.
What Dust does well
Serious pedigree and momentum. Built by ex-OpenAI and Stripe engineers, Paris-based, with a $40M Series B in 2026 and thousands of teams building on it. This is a well-funded, well-engineered platform.
Build-your-own agents. Dust's core strength is composability: connect your data (Slack, Drive, Notion, Confluence, GitHub, Salesforce, Zendesk, and more), then build custom assistants — no-code for most, with "Dust Apps" and actions for teams that want to go deeper. If you want ten purpose-built assistants configured exactly your way, Dust is built for that.
Model flexibility and open core. Dust supports leading models (Claude, GPT), offers enterprise controls (SSO, SCIM, SOC 2, optional zero data retention), and its core is open-source on GitHub.
Transparent, self-serve pricing. A free tier (credits, no card), Pro around $30/seat/mo, and a Max tier — no demo required.
Where Dust's approach can be more than a startup wants
These aren't flaws — they're the cost of a flexible platform:
You assemble the agents. Dust's power is that you build. For a team with an ops or technical person who wants to architect assistants, that's a feature. For a founder who just wants the AI to run outreach and prep calls today, it's setup work before you get value.
It's a platform, not an opinion. Dust gives you building blocks. Agently makes the decisions for you: one orchestrator, a defined Work OS (Spaces, Pages, Channels), and governed autonomy with approval built in. Fewer knobs, faster to "it's doing my work."
Index vs. temporal brain. Dust indexes your connected content into a per-workspace knowledge base. Agently's brain is a temporal knowledge graph — facts carry validity, so agents distinguish what's true now from what used to be true, without you managing it.
How Agently is different
Agently is opinionated on purpose. The brain assembles itself from your uploads and connected tools as a temporal graph. Jarvis — one orchestrator that delegates to specialist sub-agents behind the scenes — plans and executes work across those tools with your approval, so you're not composing assistants, you're delegating outcomes. The Work OS around it (task boards, docs, channels) is where that work lands. It's self-serve from $29/mo, and the same brain is reachable from Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor over MCP on every plan.
The honest trade-off: Dust is the more configurable platform and carries more enterprise heft. Agently trades that configurability for a turnkey orchestrator and a workspace built around it — you get to value faster, at the cost of Dust's build-anything flexibility.
Agently vs. Dust: side by side
| Dust | Agently | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Platform to build custom agents over your data | Turnkey company brain + one orchestrator that acts |
| Setup | You compose assistants (no-code + Dust Apps) | Delegate to Jarvis out of the box |
| Knowledge store | Indexed per-workspace knowledge base | Temporal knowledge graph (facts expire) |
| Autonomy | Agents you configure | Governed autonomy with approval built in |
| Pricing | Free tier; Pro ~$30/seat/mo | Self-serve from $29/mo |
| Open to external AI (MCP) | Yes | Yes, all plans |
| Best for | Teams that want to build tailored assistants | Founders/small teams who want it running now |
Dust pricing/packaging as of August 2026.
Can they work together?
Less naturally than with a wiki tool — Dust and Agently overlap in what they do, so most teams pick one. Choose based on whether you'd rather build agents (Dust) or delegate to one orchestrator over a shared brain (Agently).
Who should choose Dust
- You have an ops or technical owner who wants to architect custom assistants.
- You value maximum configurability and model flexibility over turnkey speed.
- Open-source and enterprise controls (ZDR, SCIM) are decision-drivers.
Who should choose Agently
- You're a founder or small team who wants AI running your work today, not a platform to configure.
- You want one orchestrator plus a Work OS, not a kit of building blocks.
- You want a temporal brain that stays current on its own and is reachable from your other AI tools over MCP.
