Head to head · Company knowledge search · October 2026 research run
Glean vs Guru
Glean has a score of 69.8 (B) against Guru's 45.3 (E). Both do company knowledge search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 39 points.
GleanGlean Technologies, Inc. · HTTP API
B69.8/100#106 of 452
GuruGuru Technologies, Inc. · HTTP API
E45.3/100#401 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Glean for
- reliability (+12)
- schema & documentation (+35)
- agent ergonomics (+32)
- security & auth (+35)
- maintenance & community (+39)
- transparency & trust (+19)
Pick Guru for
No category where it leads by five points or more.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Glean | Guru | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 60 | 48 | Glean +12 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 93 | 58 | Glean +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 48 | Glean +32 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 87 | 52 | Glean +35 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 0 | 0 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 85 | 46 | Glean +39 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 80 | 61 | Glean +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 69.8 · B | 45.3 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Glean | Guru |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Glean Technologies, Inc. | Guru Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://mcp.api.getguru.com/mcp |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Glean's terms of service. The OpenAPI specs repository, the API clients and the Glean CLI on GitHub are MIT | 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 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | com.getguru/mcp-server |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | none |
| Popularity | 58k npm/wk, 26k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |
Verdicts
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.
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
Glean
- 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>
- Ask for a user-scoped token with only the scopes the task needs. A global token can impersonate whoever
X-Glean-ActAsnames - Keep chat under 0.5 calls a second and search under 5, and back off on 429
- Call the Platform API's
/api/searchfor typed filters,page_sizeup to 100 and problem+json errors - Send
X-Glean-Exclude-Deprecated-Afterin tests to catch fields due for removal
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
Other comparisons with Glean or Guru
Machine-readable
/api/v1/tools/glean.json·/api/v1/tools/guru.json- This page as Markdown,
/compare/glean-vs-guru.md