Glean is probably the best-known answer to "AI search across everything our company knows." It indexes 100+ tools into a permission-aware knowledge graph, its assistant answers from that index, and its agents can take real actions. For a 500-person company, it's a strong product.
For a 5-person company, it's not even a possible product. Glean doesn't publish pricing, sells only through demos, and buyer reports consistently describe contracts starting around 100 seats. If you've hit that wall, this article maps the apps like Glean that a small team can actually buy, including where each option quietly stores its limits.
What "a Glean alternative" needs to do
Strip the category to its essentials and a small team needs four things:
- Connect to where knowledge already lives (docs, Slack, email, CRM, code).
- Answer questions from that knowledge, with current facts, not stale ones.
- Stay open: your knowledge should be reachable from the AI tools you already use, not locked inside one vendor's assistant.
- Be buyable: self-serve, no seat minimums, no discovery calls.
That fourth one disqualifies Glean for this audience by itself. The third one disqualifies more tools than you'd expect.
The 7 best Glean alternatives and competitors for small teams
Guru, the verified knowledge base
Guru pairs a knowledge base (Cards) with a human verification workflow: experts attest that content is still true, and layers AI search over Cards plus connected sources like Slack, Drive, and Salesforce. That verification loop is genuinely good for keeping answers trustworthy, and Guru ships a remote MCP server so external AI tools can query it.
The catch for small teams: Guru pulled public pricing in 2026, even the entry tier now routes through a sales conversation, with the previously published self-serve plan reported around $25/seat with a 10-seat minimum. And reporting suggests the best AI features (Knowledge Agents, MCP) sit in the sales-led enterprise tier. Verification also assumes someone maintains the Cards, a real ongoing cost when you're five people.
Onyx, the open-source route
Onyx (formerly Danswer) is open-source enterprise search and RAG chat: 50+ connectors, custom agents with actions, bring-your-own-LLM. Self-hosting the MIT community edition is free, cloud is $20/user/mo, there are no seat minimums, and it ships a built-in MCP server, the openness criterion, fully met.
The catch: self-hosting is real ops work, Docker or Kubernetes, a database, an index, model configuration, upgrades. That's a part-time DevOps tax, plus you supply and pay for the LLM keys. Great if you have an engineer who wants to own it; a distraction if you don't.
Dust, build your own agents over company data
Dust connects your company data (Slack, Drive, Notion, Confluence, GitHub, Salesforce and more) and lets you build custom assistants on top of it, no-code for most teams, with actions and MCP servers as tools when you want to go further. Pricing is public and self-serve: a free tier with a small lifetime credit allowance, then Pro at about €30 per seat per month (€24 billed yearly) and a Max tier above it.
Dust vs Glean: Glean is search first, with assistants and agents layered over one big permission-aware index, sold through sales. Dust is agents first: you decide which assistants exist and what each one can see, and you can buy it today with a card.
The catch: you assemble the agents. That's the point for a team with an ops or technical person who wants to design them, and setup work for a founder who just wants answers. We compare it with Agently in detail in Agently vs Dust.
Dropbox Dash, the closest like-for-like search product
Dropbox Dash is the option that looks most like Glean: universal AI search and chat across 20+ connected apps (Google Drive, Slack, Notion, Confluence, Jira, GitHub, Salesforce, Gmail, Outlook and more), with sourced answers and admin controls. Dash for Teams is listed at $19 per user per month, or $15 billed yearly, for teams up to 100 users, with a 30-day free trial. It also ships a remote MCP server that Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor can connect to.
Dash vs Glean: similar job, very different buying process. Dash publishes its price and lets a small team start a trial on its own; Glean does neither. Glean's agent and action layer is broader, and Dash is centred on finding and answering.
The catch: Dash is another per-seat subscription built around search. It finds and summarises; it doesn't run your work. Check current pricing, since Dash plans have changed as the product has.
Gemini Enterprise, Google's answer to Glean (formerly Agentspace)
Google folded Agentspace, its enterprise search and agent product, into Gemini Enterprise in October 2025, so anyone searching "Agentspace vs Glean" is now comparing Glean with Gemini Enterprise. It combines search across your company data, a Gemini assistant, prebuilt agents such as Deep Research, and a no-code agent builder. Connectors cover Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and third-party tools like Confluence, Jira, SharePoint and ServiceNow.
A Business edition aimed at small teams is listed at $21 per seat per month with a 30-day free trial; Standard and Plus editions cost more and add the full connector catalogue and enterprise controls. Check current pricing, since Google also meters some agent usage on top of seats.
The catch: the Business edition gets only a selected set of connectors, the no-code agent builder is on Standard and above, and the product is at its best when your company already runs on Google. It's a serious Glean competitor for mid-size companies; for a five-person team it's a lot of platform.
Notion AI, search where your wiki lives
If Notion is already your wiki, Notion's Business plan ($20/member/mo, billed annually) bundles AI search across your workspace and a modest set of connected apps (Slack, Drive, Jira, GitHub, and a handful more). Fully self-serve, no minimums, the lowest-friction entry on this list.
The catch: the search is bounded by Notion adoption, the connector catalog is roughly a tenth of Glean's, and, subtly, Notion's MCP server and API expose Notion pages only. The cross-app knowledge its AI search reaches through connectors stays inside Notion's own assistant. Your Claude or Cursor session can read your Notion docs, but not that aggregated index.
Agently, the company brain your AI tools share
Agently approaches the category from a different premise. It's an AI chief of staff for CEOs and small teams, built on a company brain assembled from your uploads and the tools you connect (Slack, Gmail, HubSpot, Linear, GitHub, Notion and more). Instead of a search box inside one more app, the brain is available everywhere:
-
Inside Agently, where Jarvis uses the brain to do the work: keep one ranked to-do list of what needs you, prep your meetings, draft replies and updates, with anything that leaves the company waiting for your approval. Answering questions is the floor, not the ceiling.
-
Outside Agently, through the MCP server at
api.agently.dev/mcp: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code query the same brain with workspace-scoped keys or OAuth. Your knowledge is deliberately not locked inside our assistant.
Facts in the brain carry when they were true and where they came from, so when your pricing changes, agents can tell current truth from superseded history. It's self-serve, with a free tier and one paid plan at $99/mo, no seat minimums and no demo call.
The catch, honestly stated: Agently isn't trying to be Glean. There's no 100-connector permission-mirrored index for a 1,000-person org, and search quality depends on what you've connected and curated. It's built for founders and small teams that want shared, current company context powering both their AI tools and real work, at a size where Glean won't return your call.
Side by side
| Buyable by a 5-person team? | Pricing | Open to external AI tools (MCP) | Acts on knowledge? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glean | No, sales-only, ~100-seat reported floor | Not published | Yes, usage-billed | Yes, 85+ actions |
| Guru | Barely, sales call, reported 10-seat min | Not published | Yes (reportedly enterprise-gated) | Answers only |
| Onyx | Yes | Free self-host / $20 per user/mo cloud | Yes, built-in | Yes, DIY wiring |
| Dust | Yes | Free tier; Pro ~€30 per seat/mo | Uses MCP servers as agent tools | Yes, agents you build |
| Dropbox Dash | Yes, 30-day trial | $19 per user/mo ($15 yearly) | Yes, remote MCP server | Mostly search and answers |
| Gemini Enterprise | Yes, Business edition | From $21 per seat/mo | Check current docs | Yes, prebuilt agents; builder on Standard+ |
| Notion AI | Yes | $20 per member/mo (annual) | Notion content only | Within Notion |
| Agently | Yes | $99/mo (free tier) | Yes, all plans | Yes, via Jarvis + approval |
Pricing as of September 2026; check current pricing on each vendor's site. Sales-gated figures are buyer-reported.
How to choose
Have a DevOps-inclined engineer and want free + full control? Onyx self-hosted is the strongest pure-search value on the list.
Already live in Notion and just need workspace search? Notion Business is the shortest path, accept that the knowledge stays in Notion.
Support or ops team that needs verified, trustworthy answers? Guru's verification workflow is the differentiator, go in ready for the sales conversation.
Want Glean-style search you can buy this afternoon? Dropbox Dash is the closest like-for-like product, with a published price and a free trial.
Want to design your own assistants over company data? Dust gives you the most control without an enterprise contract.
Already run on Google Workspace, and growing past 50 people? Gemini Enterprise (the product formerly called Agentspace) is the natural shortlist item, and it's the Google product to compare against Glean.
Want one current company brain behind both your AI tools and actual execution? That's Agently, knowledge that doesn't just get found, but gets used.
For engineering teams. The best Glean alternative for engineers is usually the one that indexes the code stack and keeps it on your infrastructure. Onyx is the strongest fit if someone will own the Docker and index work: it has connectors for GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket alongside Jira, Linear and Confluence, syncs source permissions for several of them, runs with your own LLM keys, and costs nothing per seat when self-hosted. Dropbox Dash and Dust both connect GitHub too, if you'd rather not host anything. Agently fits if you want company knowledge reachable from Cursor, Claude Code and VS Code over MCP rather than only from a search box. At 20 to 100 engineers you're above the size Glean sells to comfortably and below the size where its reported 100-seat floor makes sense.
Watching the budget? The affordable end of this list is genuinely affordable: Onyx self-hosted is free beyond your own hosting and LLM keys, Notion Business and Onyx Cloud are around $20/user/mo, Dropbox Dash is $15 to $19/user/mo, Gemini Enterprise Business is $21/seat/mo, and Agently Pro is $99/mo per workspace with no seat minimum. Glean and Guru both route through sales, so neither publishes a number you can budget against.
