Glean alternatives: 8 tools compared (October 2026)

Algolia is a hosted search and discovery service that developers integrate into online shops, marketplaces and apps through an API. It adds AI ranking, vector-based NeuralSearch, personalization and product recommendations to fast keyword search.

Key functions

• AI Ranking reorders results based on user interactions (Grow Plus and above)
• NeuralSearch combines keyword and vector search for intent-based results (Elevate)
• Query categorization and personalization adapt results to the query and the user

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price (from $0.50 usage-based); Glean quotes on request.
• Can store data in the EU; Glean states no EU option.
• Targets companies under 50 employees, which Glean does not.
• Different pricing model: usage-based instead of contact for pricing.

Check before buying: Usage pricing means costs rise with traffic, so estimate monthly search requests and records including peak periods. The strongest AI features, such as NeuralSearch, and SSO need the Elevate contract. The pricing page lists hosting locations in the US, UK and EU West, and global locations in Elevate; choose the region for your index and ask for the data processing agreement.

Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis, research and coding, offered as a free app, as individual subscriptions and as Team and Enterprise workspaces for companies.

Key functions

• Research searches the web and connected sources and returns a cited report
• Projects group files and instructions for recurring work
• Connectors bring company tools into the chat

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price (from $17 per month); Glean quotes on request.
• Targets companies under 50 employees, which Glean does not.
• Different pricing model: freemium instead of contact for pricing.

Check before buying: Individual plans (Free, Pro, Max) let users opt out of training, while Team and Enterprise exclude it by default, so route business use through a company workspace. Check which connectors may access internal systems. In the US, state rules in Colorado and Illinois apply if outputs feed into hiring or other decisions about people.

Procore is a construction management platform for general contractors, owners and specialty contractors. Its AI agents search project documents, check submittals and contracts, draft requests for information and complete daily logs from field data.

Key functions

• Deep Search Agent answers questions across specs, drawings, RFIs and submittals with citations
• Submittal Review Agent and Contract Review Agent flag gaps against specs, contracts and drawings
• RFI Agent drafts pre-filled requests for information from drawings and project data

Compared with Glean

• Strong in the same markets as Glean: United States.

Check before buying: Credit-based billing means costs grow with ingested data and agent tasks, so estimate volumes per project before choosing Pro or Enterprise. Ask where project data is hosted for your region, and keep engineers responsible for approving submittal and contract findings, since agent output feeds contractual decisions.

Cohere North is an enterprise AI platform from Toronto-based Cohere for search, content generation and agents on company data, built for organizations that need private or on-premises deployment.

Key functions

• Search with verifiable answers from company data
• Creates documents, summaries, tables and charts
• Customizable AI agents for workflows

Compared with Glean

• Names fewer security certificates: 1, Glean 3.
• Strongest elsewhere: Canada.

Check before buying: Pricing is by quote only. Decide early between cloud, VPC and on-premises operation, since the latter requires your own GPU infrastructure and operations team. Cohere states customers can opt out of model training at any time; confirm the setting in your contract.

Cohere Embed is an embedding model family from Toronto-based Cohere. It turns text, images and mixed documents into vectors for semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation and agents in companies that need multilingual retrieval.

Key functions

• Embed 4 creates one vector for mixed text and image content such as PDFs
• Cross-lingual retrieval in 100+ languages
• Selectable vector sizes from 256 to 1,536 dimensions with a 128,000-token context

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price; Glean quotes on request.
• Different pricing model: usage-based instead of contact for pricing.
• Strongest elsewhere: Canada.

Check before buying: Decide between the hosted API, Model Vault and private deployment based on where your documents may be processed. Trial keys are free but rate limited and not meant for production. Production keys are billed by usage, and token prices for Embed 4 were not listed on the pricing page at our check, so request them before you plan volumes. Plan for re-embedding your corpus if you switch embedding models later, since vectors from different models are not compatible.

Notion is a connected workspace for documents, wikis, databases and projects used by individuals, startups and large companies. Notion AI adds an agent for multi-step tasks, AI meeting notes and custom agents that handle recurring work.

Key functions

• Notion Agent completes multi-step tasks in the workspace
• AI meeting notes
• Custom Agents handle recurring tasks autonomously (billed in Notion credits)

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price (from €9.50 per user/month); Glean quotes on request.
• Can store data in the EU; Glean states no EU option.
• Targets companies under 50 employees, which Glean does not.
• Names 6 security certificates, Glean 3.

Check before buying: Full AI features require Business or Enterprise, and Custom Agents consume Notion credits, so check that the plan and credit budget match your use. Data residency in the EU is limited to Enterprise. Zero data retention with LLM providers is also Enterprise only. Meeting notes record participants and need a notice or consent.

Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the web and returns answers with citations; the Enterprise plans add search across internal files, shared Spaces, Deep Research and admin controls for companies.

Key functions

• Answers from web search with citations
• Internal knowledge search across files from Google Drive, OneDrive and SharePoint
• Spaces for shared research

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price (from $40 per user/month); Glean quotes on request.
• Targets companies under 50 employees, which Glean does not.
• Different pricing model: per user instead of contact for pricing.
• Names fewer security certificates: 1, Glean 3.

Check before buying: Perplexity states that Enterprise plans do not use customer data for training. Several vendor pages were not reachable for our check in September 2026, so confirm data location, SSO and the data processing agreement directly with Perplexity before purchase.

Onyx is an open-source platform for enterprise search and AI chat that connects to more than 50 business apps and can run fully on a company's own infrastructure. IT teams use it to give employees answers from internal knowledge with any language model.

Key functions

• Hybrid, agentic retrieval over indexed company knowledge (RAG)
• AI chat with custom agents and actions
• Deep research for multi-step research reports

Compared with Glean

• Publishes a price (from $20 per user/month); Glean quotes on request.
• Offers a free trial; we found none for Glean.
• Targets companies under 50 employees, which Glean does not.

Check before buying: Self-hosting means your team handles updates, security patches and the search index. Check which features are only in the Enterprise Edition, such as SAML SSO. Connected apps bring their access rights into the index, so test permissions before rollout. Costs for LLM usage come on top.