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Glean vs Nouswise

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Nouswise publishes a starting price ($10); Glean does not. Only Nouswise has a free tier. Both ship a public API.

GleanPermission-aware search and agents across company applicationsNouswiseAgentic search over your team's uploaded documents, answering questions only from those sources.

Side by side

FactGleanNouswise
CategoryPersonal & Enterprise SearchEnterprise Search
Pricing modelContactFreemium
Starts at—$10 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, API, Slack App, Chrome ExtWeb, API
CompanyGlean TechnologiesNouswise, Inc.
Launched2019—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 1, 2026

What our research says

Glean

Glean is the reference implementation of permission-aware enterprise search, and permissions are the hard part everyone else underestimates. It is also priced so that only companies with a real sprawl problem can justify it.

Pros

  • Permission inheritance from each connected system is done properly, not approximated
  • Answers cite and link the underlying documents rather than paraphrasing them away
  • Connector coverage across the mainstream SaaS estate is broad
  • Commercially solid: about $300M ARR by May 2026 at a $7.2B valuation

Cons

  • No published price anywhere, and contracts start in six figures
  • Value depends entirely on connector coverage of your specific stack
  • Index quality inherits whatever mess exists in the source systems
  • Overlaps increasingly with Microsoft and Google's bundled offerings, which cost nothing extra

Nouswise

Nouswise is positioned for teams that want question-answering strictly grounded in their own documents rather than the open web, with compliance certifications that matter for enterprise buyers. The free Starter tier is generous enough (50 files, unlimited questions) to genuinely evaluate before paying. The API and MCP support make it usable as infrastructure rather than only a standalone chat interface.

Pros

  • Free tier allows unlimited questions on up to 50 files
  • Answers are restricted to provided sources, reducing hallucination risk
  • SOC 1/SOC 2 compliance and on-premises option for enterprise needs
  • API and MCP integration for embedding into other tools

Cons

  • Unlimited file count only unlocks at the $40/month Professional tier
  • Company's headquarters location is not disclosed on the site
  • Agentic cross-checking across sources can add latency versus a single-model answer

Which one fits

Choose Glean if you need

  • Organisations above roughly 500 people whose knowledge is scattered across a dozen SaaS tools
  • Regulated or security-conscious buyers who need source-system permissions honoured exactly
  • Teams building internal agents that need governed access to company context

Choose Nouswise if you need

  • Teams that need Q&A restricted strictly to their own uploaded documents
  • Organizations that require SOC 2 compliance or on-premises deployment
  • Developers wanting to embed document search via API or MCP

More comparisons

Browse all Personal & Enterprise Search →