# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-guru
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-guru.md (~1,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-guru.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-guru.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: 2026-10-05

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.

- Glean: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #106 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/glean.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/glean.json
- Guru: grade E, 45.3/100, rank #401 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guru.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guru.json

## 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 nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Glean | Guru | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 48 | Glean +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 93 | 58 | Glean +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 48 | Glean +32 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 52 | Glean +35 |
| 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) | 85 | 46 | Glean +39 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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

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

### Guru

1. Ask the person for a Guru account. There's no trial or keyless route, and OAuth needs a pre-approved client
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer email:token` to the MCP server when OAuth isn't available, and basic auth to https://api.getguru.com/api/v1/
3. Use a collection token for read-only work. User tokens write with the user's full rights
4. Follow the `Link` header to page REST search results. Each page holds at most 50 cards
5. Confirm with a person before archiving or moving cards. Guru documents no confirmation step

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