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Glean vs Onyx

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.

The short answer

Free plan
Onyx has one; Glean prices on request
Public API
Both have one
Higher Trust score
Onyx — 91 vs 85 for Glean
Best fit
Glean: Organisations above roughly 500 people whose knowledge is scattered across a dozen SaaS tools · Onyx: IT teams that must keep documents and embeddings inside their own network
Status
Both up at our last check — Glean Sep 6, 2026, Onyx Oct 2, 2026

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

GleanPermission-aware search and agents across company applicationsOnyxOpen-source AI chat and search layer that connects any LLM to a company's apps, with permission-aware retrieval and self-hosting.

Side by side

FactGleanOnyx
CategoryPersonal & Enterprise SearchEnterprise Search
Pricing modelContactFreemium
Starts at—$20/seat/mo
Public APIYesYes
Trust score85 / 10091 / 100
PlatformsWeb, API, Slack app, Chrome extensionWeb, Chrome extension, Slack app, API
CompanyGlean TechnologiesZoom
Launched20192023
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Oct 2, 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

Onyx

Onyx fits teams that want a ChatGPT-style workspace over their own documents without sending the index to a vendor cloud. The free community edition covers chat, connectors and agents; SSO and role-based access sit behind the paid tiers. The Zoom deal is new, so check how the self-hosted and open-source promises are written into your contract.

Pros

  • Permission-aware retrieval inherits access rules from each connected source
  • Runs self-hosted, including air-gapped, with a free MIT-licensed community edition
  • Works with many LLM providers, including local models
  • Connects to 40+ apps and exposes agents, MCP tools and developer APIs

Cons

  • SSO, role-based access and white-labeling require a paid or enterprise licence; the repository carries a separate enterprise licence for those directories
  • Self-hosting a search index and connectors needs real infrastructure and upkeep
  • Product roadmap now depends on a new parent company, and pricing for larger deployments is not published

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 Onyx if you need

  • IT teams that must keep documents and embeddings inside their own network
  • Companies that want one chat and search interface across Slack, Drive, Confluence and GitHub
  • Teams that want to swap LLM providers without changing the interface

Glean vs Onyx: the questions people ask

Is Glean cheaper than Onyx?

Onyx starts at $20/seat/mo; Glean prices on request, so a quote is the only way to compare.

Does Glean or Onyx have a free tier?

Onyx has a free tier; Glean prices on request.

Which has a public API, Glean or Onyx?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.

More comparisons

Browse all Personal & Enterprise Search →