# Collibra vs Glean

> Glean scores 69.8 (B) to Collibra's 64.6 (B) for company knowledge search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Glean scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against Collibra's 64.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Collibra leads on reliability. Both do company knowledge search.

- Collibra: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #346 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/collibra.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/collibra.json
- Glean: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #167 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/glean.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/glean.json
- Best company knowledge search and data catalogues for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/company-knowledge/index.md
- All 63 knowledge comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/company-knowledge/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Collibra (B)

Good for: An organisation that already runs Collibra and wants an agent to look up assets, glossary terms, lineage and data quality, or to write assets and classifications under a governed role.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 66 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No published price, trial or self-serve sign-up. The pricing address returns 404 and the site links a demo request and a product tour

### Glean (B)

Good for: Agents working inside a company that already runs Glean and need answers from its documents, chats, tickets, code and people with each user's permissions applied.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 93 against 83
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 75
- Security & auth, 87 against 68
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 76

Watch for: No public price, trial or self-serve signup. Access starts with a demo request


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Collibra | Glean | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 66 | 60 | Collibra +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 93 | Glean +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 80 | Glean +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 68 | 87 | Glean +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 0 | 0 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 85 | Glean +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 80 | Collibra +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.6 · B** | **69.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Collibra | Glean |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Collibra | Glean Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Master Collibra Agreement, with the Developer Terms for the REST APIs and CLI. The local MCP server (chip) is Apache-2.0, and the CLI binary ships under a Binary Code Licence Agreement | Proprietary service under Glean's terms of service. The OpenAPI specs repository, the API clients and the Glean CLI on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 30 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-04 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-04-01 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 37 stars | 58k npm/wk, 26k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Collibra.** Each REST API has an OpenAPI 3.0 definition, the developer portal publishes llms.txt and Markdown pages, and every MCP tool carries read-only and destructive annotations. Access needs a sales contract, since no price, trial or self-serve sign-up is published, and no general API rate limit was found in the reviewed documentation.

**Glean.** Three public OpenAPI specs (Client, Indexing, Platform) regenerated almost daily, plus llms.txt and Markdown docs. No public price, trial or self-serve signup. Access starts with a demo request.

## Before you call either

### Collibra

1. Ask a Collibra administrator to register an OAuth application. Integration applications use client credentials, and MCP clients need a user application with a redirect URI
2. Reuse each access token for its 5 minutes. The token endpoint answers 429 once a client drains its pool of 100 tokens, refilled at 30 a minute
3. Page large reads with `cursor=` and `sortField=ID`. Cursor and offset parameters cannot be combined, and Search API `limit` plus `offset` cannot exceed 10,000
4. Keep Import API files to 10,000 assets or fewer and run at most 8 imports at once. Retry a job that fails on a concurrency error
5. Expect `discover_data_assets` and `discover_business_glossary` to consume Collibra Units and to need the `dgc.ai-copilot` permission. Use `search_asset_keyword` for free keyword search

### Glean

1. Get the backend host from the Glean admin. APIs answer at https://<instance>-be.glean.com and MCP at that host under /mcp/<server-name>
2. Ask for a user-scoped token with only the scopes the task needs. A global token can impersonate whoever `X-Glean-ActAs` names
3. Keep chat under 0.5 calls a second and search under 5, and back off on 429
4. Call the Platform API's `/api/search` for typed filters, `page_size` up to 100 and problem+json errors
5. Send `X-Glean-Exclude-Deprecated-After` in tests to catch fields due for removal

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Collibra or Glean?

Glean scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against Collibra's 64.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Collibra leads on reliability.

### Do Collibra and Glean need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Collibra and Glean without installing anything?

Collibra runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Glean.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-glean.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "collibra", "b": "glean"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare collibra glean`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/collibra.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/glean.json

## Other comparisons with Collibra or Glean

- [Alation vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-glean.md)
- [Atlan vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-glean.md)
- [Cohere North vs Collibra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-collibra.md)
- [Cohere North vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cohere-north-vs-glean.md)
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- [Collibra vs Guru](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-guru.md)
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- [Collibra vs Overclock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/collibra-vs-overclock.md)
- [Dust vs Glean](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dust-vs-glean.md)
- [Glean vs Guru](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-guru.md)
- [Glean vs Onyx](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-onyx.md)
- [Glean vs Overclock](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-overclock.md)
- [Glean vs Secoda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda.md)
- [Alation vs Collibra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alation-vs-collibra.md)
- [Atlan vs Collibra](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/atlan-vs-collibra.md)
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