Information should power your productivity, not slow it down. As enterprises increasingly generate mountains of data—scattered across cloud drives, wikis, emails, chats, and more—the challenge isn’t just volume, but findability, reliability, and actionability. That’s where enterprise search and knowledge management software come in.

Glean, a popular workplace search platform, promises a single search bar for everything: Docs, Slack, Notion, email, tickets, and countless SaaS apps. Yet, even Glean has its limitations. Maybe you need richer integrations, advanced AI, deeper customization, or workflow automation. Or perhaps you want vendor flexibility as your tech stack evolves.

If you’re evaluating Glean—or looking for a more powerful alternative—this guide is for you. After hands-on trials, expert interviews, and deep feature dives, I’ve curated four best Glean alternatives, each suited to different organizational needs, team sizes, and technical sophistication.

In this article, you’ll find:

• What to look for in a knowledge management/search platform
• Detailed reviews of four top Glean alternatives (ClickUp, Guru, Algolia, and Coveo)
• Side-by-side comparisons with Glean’s features
• Use cases, ideal teams, pros, and cons for each tool
• Recommendations on how to choose the best solution for your specific workflow

Let’s unlock your company’s collective intelligence!

Quick Primer: What Makes a Great Glean Alternative?

Before diving into specific tools, let’s clarify the main criteria you should weigh when selecting a Glean competitor:

1. Search Power and Organization The platform must surface the right answer instantly, even from ambiguous queries, across all your data silos. Look for robust filtering, tagging, synonyms, and advanced ranking.

2. Integrations Can it natively connect to your apps (Google Workspace, Slack, Jira, Box, Confluence, MS Teams, CRM, etc.)? Deep, seamless integrations are essential for true knowledge centralization.

3. Scalability & Performance Will it perform well for 10 users or 10,000? Must handle growing datasets, multi-location teams, and complex security needs—without lag or reliability issues.

4. Customization Can you tailor workflows, UI, and permissions to match your organization’s unique structure? Does it offer APIs, webhooks, or developer controls for custom integrations?

5. AI & Automation Does it enable not just retrieval (“here’s the doc”) but intelligence (“here’s the answer, summarized and actionable”)? Can it automate repetitive work or proactively recommend knowledge?

6. Knowledge Freshness & Verification How does it ensure that what you find is still correct and relevant? Built-in content review, owner assignment, or automated reminders can be game-changers.

With these in mind, let’s examine the leading Glean alternatives.

1. ClickUp: Unified Work, Knowledge, and AI in One Platform

Overview

ClickUp started as a project management platform, but has rapidly evolved into an all-in-one workspace for documentation, collaboration, and knowledge management. What sets it apart is its deep integration of AI, workflow automation, universal search, and robust project execution—all in a single platform.

Whereas Glean aggregates information from all your tools and helps you find it, ClickUp is your tool for doing, storing, automating, and searching work. This unity makes it a unique proposition for organizations tired of “tool sprawl.”

Key Strengths vs Glean

1. Actionable AI, Not Just Search

• ClickUp’s AI (“ClickUp Brain”, AI Agents) doesn’t just retrieve data. It summarizes meeting notes, answers contextual questions, auto-updates docs, generates standups, and more.
• Glean’s AI capabilities focus on finding existing info; ClickUp’s take it a step further by organizing, reasoning, and executing on that info.

2. Universal Search

• ClickUp’s Universal Search looks across all ClickUp tasks, docs, projects, and (with integrations) even external apps and local files.
• Custom commands, shortcuts, and AI-powered context make finding info seamless.

3. Single Source of Truth

• Avoid tool fragmentation: Docs, tasks, goals, and dashboards all live inside ClickUp. No more bouncing between 5-10 SaaS tools or relying on shallow integrations.

4. Customization & Workflow Automation

• ClickUp is endlessly configurable: Custom fields, statuses, templates, automations, permissions, and even white-label branding for external clients.
• Build your own processes and knowledge structures, mapped to how your teams actually work.

Feature Breakdown

- ClickUp Docs: Full-featured, collaborative docs (wikis, SOPs, playbooks) with real-time editing, versioning, and smart slash-commands.

- AI Knowledge Manager: Natural-language search brings up tailored answers, not just documents. AI also suggests related tasks, docs, and stakeholders.

- Project & Task Management: Native Kanban, Gantt, dependencies, sprints, timesheets, goals, and workload tracking. Deep links between tasks and knowledge.

- Automation: Trigger rules for recurring tasks (like doc reviews), notifications, Slack updates, or workflow changes, all without code.

- Integrations: 1000+ integrations including Google Drive, Slack, GitHub, CRM systems, cloud storage, and more.

- Dashboards & Reporting: Real-time visualization of productivity, project status, knowledge gaps, and more.

- Security & Compliance: SSO, 2FA, data encryption, GDPR/CCPA support, custom user roles & granular permissions.

Use Cases

• Centralized knowledge + workflow: Unify docs, project plans, workflows, and institutional memory under one roof.
• AI-powered onboarding: New hires can quickly find updated guides, policies, and FAQs—right next to their project tasks.
• Automated standups & meeting notes: Reduce admin overhead; AI creates summaries, surface blockers or missing docs.
• Contextual Q&A: “What are the next steps for Project X?”, “Pull all release notes for Q2”—AI fetches, summarizes, and links relevant data.

Pros

• Full-featured project management + knowledge management in one
• AI that goes beyond search—summarization, automation, context-specific actions
• Highly customizable workflows and views
• Great for reducing tool sprawl
• User-friendly, visually polished, and continually updated

Cons

• If you’re 100% invested in tools like Jira, Confluence, or Microsoft 365, migrating may be a big shift.
• Can feel overwhelming due to sheer breadth of features if not properly configured.
• Most advanced AI and automation features are in higher-tier paid plans.

When ClickUp Is the Best Glean Alternative

Choose ClickUp if you want to centralize teams, docs, tasks, and knowledge—using AI to drive not just information discovery, but action. Ideal for fast-growing tech companies, agencies, and organizations aiming to consolidate SaaS overhead while maximizing productivity.

Try ClickUp for free →

2. Guru: Contextual, Verified, Collaborative Knowledge Management

Overview

Guru positions itself as a “single source of truth” for teams—especially customer support, sales, enablement, and internal operations. Unlike Glean, which is primarily a search and aggregation layer, Guru is fundamentally about knowledge creation, context-aware retrieval, and content trustworthiness.

Its killer feature: workflow-integrated knowledge. Guru surfaces relevant answers in Slack, Teams, Chrome, or email as you work. It also uniquely verifies (and reminds you to re-verify) the freshness of key knowledge, ensuring your docs don’t rot.

Key Strengths vs Glean

1. Verified Knowledge Workflows

• Guru prompts SMEs (subject matter experts) to own, verify, and regularly update content. Colors or badges indicate “freshness” vs “stale.”
• Critical for regulated industries, onboarding, or fast-changing products.

2. Contextual Surfacing

• Guru guesses what you need before you search: Working in Slack? Doing RFPs in Chrome? Guru injects info cards or suggestions at the point of need, without manual lookup.
• Glean requires you to initiate the search every time.

3. GenAI-Powered Authoring and Q&A

• Generate knowledge cards, update wikis, and answer employee queries with natural language.
• Guru’s AI is highly tuned for internal knowledge context—not just generic retrieval.

4. Enablement and Analytics

• Track which docs are used/shared, who’s consumed onboarding, and where employees are getting stuck.
• Get actionable insights on knowledge gaps vs. usage.

Feature Breakdown

- Knowledge Cards: Bite-sized, structured docs (how-tos, policies, FAQs) with version history, comments, ownership, and tags.

- Verification Workflow: Assign content owners and automate review cycles. Visual indicators (green/yellow/red) show freshness.

- AI Suggestions: In-browser and in-app recommendations of relevant knowledge based on current app/page/context.

- Slack/Teams Integrations: AI-powered answers, instant Doc suggestions, usage analytics, sharing, and authoring—without leaving chat.

- Chrome Extension: Guru stays with you in browser-based tools; company knowledge one click away, anywhere.

- Q&A with AI: Employees and reps can pose natural-language questions; Guru’s AI extracts, summarizes, and surfaces answers, pulling from verified knowledge cards and internal documentation.

- Knowledge Triggers: Guru watches for keywords in chat or ticket systems, offering relevant cards automatically—streamlining onboarding and support.

- Flexible Permissions: Sophisticated controls let you set who can author, verify, view, or edit content for granular governance.

- Usage Insights: Detailed dashboards highlight top-used answers, frequent gaps, and knowledge performance over time.

Use Cases

• Onboarding & Ramp: Auto-suggest onboarding steps, playbooks, or FAQs as new team members interact in Slack or Chrome.
• Customer Support: Surface precise troubleshooting guides inside helpdesk tools or customer chat—live and always up-to-date.
• Sales Enablement: Instantly retrieve competitive intel, pricing, or policy answers while drafting an RFP or responding to prospects.
• Process and Policy Management: Ensure only the latest, expert-verified procedures are accessible. Stakeholders are auto-reminded to refresh crucial documentation.

Pros

• Best-in-class knowledge freshness via automated verification and ownership workflows
• AI proactively surfaces answers in context, so less manual searching
• Seamless, deep integrations with Slack, Teams, and Chrome—great for chat-heavy or remote companies
• Lightning-fast onboarding, internally and for customer-facing roles
• Intuitive UI and approachable for non-technical users

Cons

• Less suited for highly technical, developer-driven organizations (e.g., no full-app search or complex API triggers like Algolia or Elastic)
• Not a task/project management tool; works best alongside, not instead of, ClickUp/Asana/Jira
• Granular workflows (like advanced automations) are less flexible than in dedicated project tools
• Some advanced analytics/pro features locked to higher pricing tiers

When Guru Is the Best Glean Alternative

Choose Guru if you value contextual, verified, and easily consumed knowledge, especially for high-turnover or customer-facing teams. Guru’s exceptional Slack/Chrome workflows make it ideal for support, sales, enablement, onboarding, or policy-driven functions needing trusted, fresh answers at their fingertips.

Explore Guru’s use cases →

3. Algolia: Developer-Centric, Lightning-Fast Custom Search

Overview

Algolia isn’t a knowledge management tool in the traditional sense—it’s a search platform that gives you raw, developer-grade control over how users find information, across any dataset or app. Think of Algolia as the “search engine behind the search bar,” powering everything from internal portals to ecommerce to help centers.

Where Glean shines in plug-and-play unification of SaaS stack search, Algolia stands out for speed, flexibility, and relevance tuning—perfect if you want to architect your own custom, supercharged search across both internal and external content.

Key Strengths vs Glean

1. Fully Customizable Search Experience

• Total control over design, UI/UX, ranking rules, filters, and more.
• Supports “instant search,” typo tolerance, synonyms, and custom facets.

2. All-Data, Any-Source Platform

• Not just SaaS integrations—index any structured or unstructured dataset: proprietary repositories, customer portals, websites, and more.
• Search external-facing sites and internal apps with one backend.

3. Performance and Scalability

• Blazing-fast response times even on millions of records.
• Global distribution, high concurrency, robust monitoring.

4. Programmable AI Relevance

• Fine-tune search results using rules, AI-powered re-ranking, user behavior analytics, and synonyms.
• Glean manages much of this “under the hood,” with less developer control.

Feature Breakdown

- Search API: Powerful, well-documented RESTful API and robust SDKs (JS, Python, Ruby, etc.).

- Synonyms & Custom Ranking: Tune how queries match content, boost or demote results, and support complex business logic.

- Faceting & Filtering: Multi-dimensional navigation and advanced filters for granular search.

- AI-Powered Search: AI ranking models, typo detection/correction, semantic search enhancements.

- Analytics: Out-of-the-box dashboards for tracking search metrics (zero-results, conversion rates, popular queries).

- UI Libraries: Pre-built and extensible UI components for web/mobile.

Use Cases

• Custom Intranet Portals: Empower employees to search wikis, files, tickets, and CRM in a single custom interface.
• Customer-Facing Knowledge Bases: Deliver instant answers across help centers, docs, and product catalogs.
• Product Discovery: Power e-commerce, marketplace, or media site search with relevancy control.
• Cross-Platform Search: Standardize search across websites, internal tools, and desktop/mobile applications.

Pros

• Ultimate flexibility for organizations with unique search needs or custom data sources
• Ultra-fast performance and advanced relevance controls
• Indexes both internal and external datasets (not just SaaS apps)
• Developer-friendly with deep API/documentation
• Granular analytics and A/B testing capability

Cons

• Requires developer resources to implement and maintain (not a plug-and-play experience)
• Knowledge verification and workflow automation features are minimal; best paired with a separate KM/documentation tool
• No “out-of-the-box” knowledge management or content creation/UI features

When Algolia Is the Best Glean Alternative

Choose Algolia if you require maximum customization and performance—for example, if you want a branded intranet, searchable website, or internal portal drawing from a variety of custom repositories. Great for engineering teams, large enterprises with proprietary data, or anyone wanting to own their UX and relevance model.

Learn how companies build with Algolia →

4. Coveo: AI-Driven, Enterprise-Grade, and Multi-channel Intelligence

Overview

Coveo is an enterprise search and AI personalization platform designed to serve not only employees, but also customers and partners—across websites, knowledge bases, e-commerce catalogs, and support portals. If Glean is the “One Search Bar for Your Workplace,” Coveo is the “AI Brain” powering search, recommendations, and insights across your entire digital footprint.

Its strength lies in deep AI personalization, multi-channel content unification, analytics, and scalability—especially for large or complex enterprises.

Key Strengths vs Glean

1. Enterprise-Grade, Multi-Source Search

• Index SaaS tools and proprietary systems, CRMs, databases, websites, and more.
• Great for companies whose knowledge lives beyond Google Drive or Slack.

2. Hyper-Personalized AI Recommendations

• Learns user intent, context, and behavior to tune results over time.
• Powers both internal (employee) and external (customer/partner) portals, with personalized results and content suggestions.

3. Powerful Analytics and Optimization

• Understand exactly what users search for, what they click, and where they struggle.
• Recommend content gaps, optimize search experience, and measure knowledge ROI.

4. Workflow, Security, Compliance

• Fine-grained access control, advanced SSO/SSO, audit-ready compliance for regulated industries.

Feature Breakdown

- AI Search & Recommendations: Machine learning tailors search results; delivers relevant answers, not just matching documents.

- Universal Indexing: Pull and merge data from SaaS apps, internal networks, on-prem, cloud, web, and more. Flexible connectors and ingestion APIs.

- Usage Analytics: Comprehensive dashboards for search trends, popular/failing queries, knowledge gaps, and user journeys.

- Workflow Personalization: Contextualize knowledge for each user/role/location. Automate surfacing of content at different lifecycle stages (e.g., onboarding vs advanced support).

- Embedded Search Widgets: Add Coveo-powered search to intranets, customer support portals, e-commerce, community forums, and more.

- Security: Role-based permissions, SAML/SSO, GDPR-compliant.

Use Cases

• Global Enterprise Search: Unify knowledge across hundreds of systems for large distributed teams.
• Customer Support Portal: Power self-service knowledge bases with AI search + recommendations, decreasing support ticket volume.
• Sales Enablement: Quickly surface collateral, use cases, and dynamic playbooks for distributed sales teams.
• E-commerce/Product Discovery: Guide customers to the right product with personalized suggestions and semantic filters.

Pros

• Deep, AI-driven personalization: dynamically adjusts results per role and previous behavior
• Supports both internal employee search and external customer-facing portals
• Best-in-class analytics for search optimization and knowledge ROI
• Can ingest and unify content from nearly any data source
• Enterprise-grade compliance, redundancy, and support

Cons

• Higher learning curve and TCO (total cost of ownership) than more simple SaaS solutions
• Complexity and price may be overkill for SMBs or teams with <100 users
• Requires IT/developer involvement for setup, integration, and tuning
• Many features available at the higher/enterprise tiers

When Coveo Is the Best Glean Alternative

Choose Coveo if your organization has complex knowledge systems, diverse data sources, and multiple audience types (employees, partners, customers). Coveo’s powerful AI, analytics, and multi-channel support make it a top choice for large enterprises seeking both internal and external knowledge excellence.

See Coveo’s platform in action →

Choosing the Right Glean Alternative for Your Organization

With the breadth of options available, the best alternative ultimately depends on your use case, tech maturity, team structure, and growth plans. Here’s a practical guide to making the right choice:

1. Map Your Knowledge Needs

• Where is your knowledge today? (Google Drive, Slack, custom databases, intranet, etc.)
• Who needs answers—and when? Are you supporting just employees, or also customers and partners?
• Do you need more workflow/action, or just findability? Is surfacing knowledge enough, or do you want execution, automation, and updates to happen too?

2. Assess Your Integration Landscape

• If 90%+ of your data lives in Google Workspace, Office365, Slack, Jira, etc., Glean or Guru may work perfectly.
• If you need to index custom silos, internal apps, or non-SaaS content, Algolia or Coveo are essential.
• If you want to consolidate tools and own both management and execution, ClickUp is unique.

3. Weigh Customization vs Plug & Play

• ClickUp: Endless customization for workflow-driven teams—but requires initial setup and business process mapping.
• Guru: Great plug & play, especially for Slack/Chrome-based orgs, with a culture of knowledge verification.
• Algolia: Maximum flexibility, at the cost of developer time.
• Coveo: Deep, enterprise customization and analytics, especially valuable at large scale.

4. Prioritize Security, Compliance, and Analytics

• Security is strong across the board, but enterprise compliance (audit logs, SOC2, etc.) is a Coveo/CickUp strength.
• If analytics and optimization are critical (e.g., you must prove search ROI or knowledge gaps), Coveo and Algolia lead.
• For surfacing outdated/incorrect info, Guru’s verification keeps knowledge fresh.

5. Consider Ease of Adoption

• Guru: Fastest learning curve, lowest tech barrier for end users.
• ClickUp: Some onboarding needed, but centralizes everything for rapid adoption.
• Algolia/Coveo: Plan on IT/integrator resources for rollout, especially if customizing UI or ingesting proprietary silos.

Example Scenarios

Scenario 1: Onboarding, Sales Enablement, and Support in a SaaS Company

A company wants new hires to ramp up quickly, support reps to access the latest troubleshooting guides, and sales to pull up-to-date collateral during calls. Slack is central, and knowledge changes often.

• Best Fit: Guru (contextual answers, Slack/Chrome integration, knowledge verification)

Scenario 2: Custom Employee Portal with Proprietary Data Sources

A multinational builds its own knowledge portal, with deep search of regulatory docs, engineering tickets, and custom apps. Needs to tune relevance and UX.

• Best Fit: Algolia (programmable search layer, flexible integrations, API-first)

Scenario 3: Consolidating Knowledge and Projects in One Place

A remote tech firm wants to cut SaaS bloat: docs, projects, playbooks, and knowledge all-in-one, with AI for summarization and workflow automation.

• Best Fit: ClickUp (unified “one-stop-shop” for work, docs, projects, and knowledge)

Scenario 4: Enterprise-Scale Internal & External Search

A Fortune 500 with thousands of employees, partner portals, customer knowledge bases, and omnichannel support needs seamless, personalized knowledge discovery at every digital touchpoint.

• Best Fit: Coveo (AI-powered, highly personalized, internal + customer-facing)

Conclusion: Future-Proof Knowledge Management Means Choosing the Right Tool

In an era of knowledge overload, the companies that win are those who enable their teams to find and act on information—instantly, reliably, and at scale. Glean remains a fine choice for plug-and-play enterprise search, but as this guide has shown, you have powerful, flexible, and sometimes more innovative options.

ClickUp corners the market for those wanting all-in-one efficiency; Guru makes context and freshness king; Algolia delivers custom search brilliance for developer-driven orgs, and Coveo scales personalized search across the enterprise and beyond.

Your next step:

• List your must-have features, integration needs, and preferred workflows.
• Trial your top two choices (all offer demos or freemium plans).
• Involve actual end users in testing and feedback—they’ll reveal which tool truly makes your knowledge accessible and actionable.

Choose wisely, and you’ll transform not just your search, but your organization’s entire ability to learn, share, and execute.