# Glean vs Secoda

> Glean scores 69.8 (B) to Secoda's 44.5 (E) for company knowledge search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda.md (~2,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/glean-vs-secoda.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 Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do company knowledge search.

- 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
- Secoda: grade E, 44.5/100, rank #875 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/secoda.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/secoda.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

### 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:
- Reliability, 60 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 93 against 59
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 44
- Security & auth, 87 against 54
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 60
- Transparency & trust, 80 against 58

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

### Secoda (E)

Good for: A data team already on Secoda that wants an agent to read and edit catalogue metadata, lineage, documents and glossary terms, or to search the catalogue and run SQL through the local MCP server.

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No price is published. The three plans (Core, Premium, Enterprise) link to a sales form, and no trial or sign-up button was found on the site


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Glean | Secoda | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 40 | Glean +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 93 | 59 | Glean +34 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 44 | Glean +36 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 54 | Glean +33 |
| 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 | 60 | Glean +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 58 | Glean +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.8 · B** | **44.5 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Glean | Secoda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Glean Technologies, Inc. | Secoda, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API 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 service under the Secoda Master Subscription Agreement. The local MCP server in secoda/secoda-mcp is MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated |  | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-01 | no date given |
| 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 | 58k npm/wk, 26k PyPI/wk | 1 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**Secoda.** The REST API reference embeds OpenAPI 3.0 definitions on every page, with `llms.txt` and Markdown copies, and the subscription agreement carries a 99.9 per cent uptime commitment. No price, trial or sign-up is published, no status page was found, and the public changelog stops at 28 October 2025 although self-hosted releases continue.

## 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

### Secoda

1. Pick the base URL by workspace region. `app.secoda.co` uses `api.secoda.co`, `eu.secoda.co` uses `eapi.secoda.co` and `apac.secoda.co` uses `aapi.secoda.co`
2. Keep writes under 30 PUT, PATCH or POST calls a minute on entity endpoints, and back off on a 429
3. List with `/api/v1/resource/catalog` and a URL-encoded JSON `filter`. The per-type list endpoints for tables are marked deprecated, and results stop at 10,000 resources
4. Send at most 100 entities to `/api/v1/resource/all/bulk_update/` in one request
5. Add a trailing slash when an endpoint does not behave as expected, as the docs advise
6. Treat an API key as the creating user. `run_sql` in the MCP server works only when an admin has enabled Run SQL and the user has query access to the integration

## Questions

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

Glean scores 69.8 (B) on agent readiness against Secoda's 44.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

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

Glean takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Secoda needs an API key.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Glean or Secoda

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