Head to head · Company knowledge search · October 2026 research run
Dust vs Guru
Dust scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Guru's 45.1 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do company knowledge search.
Which one, for what
Dust B
Good for A team that already works in Dust and wants an outside agent to search its spaces, read documents and call its agents with a user's own access.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 53 against 48
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 67 against 48
- Security & auth, 75 against 52
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 86 against 46
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 59
Also in its favour
- Open source
Watch for
Programmatic usage has no free credits. It draws only on the workspace credit pool, which Free seats cannot use
Guru E
Good for Companies already running Guru that want agents to answer from verified cards with each user's permissions, and to draft card changes.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No public prices, plans or trial, and the pricing page sends everyone to sales
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Dust | Guru | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 53 | 48 | Dust +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 58 | Dust +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 67 | 48 | Dust +19 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 75 | 52 | Dust +23 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 0 | Dust +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 86 | 46 | Dust +40 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 68 | 59 | Dust +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 62.8 · B | 45.1 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Dust | Guru |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Permutation Labs | Guru Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://dust.tt/mcp | https://mcp.api.getguru.com/mcp |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT for the platform's source at github.com/dust-tt/dust. The hosted service is sold under Dust's own terms. The npm page gives ISC for @dust-tt/client and MIT for @dust-tt/dust-cli | Proprietary hosted service under Guru's terms of service. The Python SDK (guruhq/guru-py-sdk) is MIT, and the MCP server's public repository holds only a README and server.json |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | com.getguru/mcp-server |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | none |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-03-25 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-08-19 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | |
| Popularity | 1.5k stars, 17k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Dust
The whole platform is MIT on GitHub, with a public OpenAPI document of 68 operations, llms.txt and a remote MCP server that acts with the signed-in user's access. API calls that run agents draw only on a paid workspace credit pool, and the terms of service could not be read.
Guru
Hosted MCP server at https://mcp.api.getguru.com/mcp, registered as com.getguru/mcp-server in the official MCP registry. No public prices, plans or trial, and the pricing page sends everyone to sales.
Before you call either
Dust
- Use
https://eu.dust.ttfor a workspace in the EU region andhttps://dust.ttotherwise, for both the API and the MCP server - Connect an MCP client by OAuth and send the
resourceparameter in authorisation and token requests. API keys do not work on the MCP server - Expect HTTP 429 with type
rate_limit_errorwhen the credit pool, the programmatic monthly cap or the key's spend cap is exhausted. Retrying will not help - Call
GET /api/v1/w/{wId}/searchwithlimit(1 to 100, default 25) andcursor, or a data source view's search withtop_k - Keep document upserts under 120 a minute per workspace
Guru
- Ask the person for a Guru account. There's no trial or keyless route, and OAuth needs a pre-approved client
- Send
Authorization: Bearer email:tokento the MCP server when OAuth isn't available, and basic auth to https://api.getguru.com/api/v1/ - Use a collection token for read-only work. User tokens write with the user's full rights
- Follow the
Linkheader to page REST search results. Each page holds at most 50 cards - Confirm with a person before archiving or moving cards. Guru documents no confirmation step
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Dust or Guru?
Dust scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Guru's 45.1 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Do Dust and Guru need an API key?
Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Dust and Guru without installing anything?
Yes. Dust has a hosted endpoint at https://dust.tt/mcp and Guru at https://mcp.api.getguru.com/mcp.
Are Dust and Guru open source?
Dust is open source (MIT for the platform's source at github.com/dust-tt/dust. The hosted service is sold under Dust's own terms. The npm page gives ISC for `@dust-tt/client` and MIT for `@dust-tt/dust-cli`). No open-source release is listed for Guru.
Other comparisons with Dust or Guru
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/dust-vs-guru.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/dust.json·/api/v1/tools/guru.json - From a terminal
anchor compare dust guru(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "dust", "b": "guru"}at/mcp, no key