Glean vs WRITER

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

WRITER

WRITER is built for large marketing, sales and support organisations that want governed AI agents tied to their own data and brand rules, with admin controls that security teams expect. Individuals and small businesses looking for an inexpensive writing assistant will find it oversized and hard to price without talking to sales.

Pros

• +Governance features such as audit logs, guardrails and role-based access
• +Knowledge Graph and connectors ground outputs in company data
• +Own Palmyra models with the option to use other LLMs
• +14-day free trial of Starter without a credit card

Cons

• −No published price for any plan
• −Starter is capped at 5 users, 5 Playbooks and 3 active connectors
• −Most advanced orchestration and connectors are Enterprise-only

Which has a public API, Glean or WRITER?

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