Proof you can hand over
Both products check permissions. The difference is what survives the check: Brain keeps an append-only, content-blind record of every access, so the answer to a security review is a file rather than an assurance.
vs
Brain vs Glean
A mature enterprise work-AI suite, and a governance-and-proof spine you can start free.
Glean is a mature enterprise search and work-AI suite with a large connector library, sold through a sales process. Brain is a governance-and-proof spine you can start free and self-serve, with a content-blind, tamper-evident record, an optional on-chain anchor, and your own model key. Both check permissions before answering. They differ on how you buy, what you can prove afterwards, and where your data and your model live.
Why teams compare them
Answers that show their working
Every claim in an answer carries the source it came from, and every source was checked against the person asking before the model saw it.
Where Glean is the better fit
For a large organisation standardising on one work-AI platform, with the widest connector library and a sales-led rollout behind it, Glean is a strong and mature choice.
The questions people actually ask about Glean
Glean already respects permissions. Isn't that the same thing?
Up to the moment of the answer, largely yes. Both check what the person asking is allowed to see before anything is retrieved.
They part company after that. Brain can withhold one field inside a document a person may otherwise open, so a file is useful without being fully exposed, and it writes down what it withheld.
Fine. But what about the agents we're starting to run?
An agent is a requester like any other, and it is usually the one nobody scoped carefully.
Brain gives agents the same grid as people: a named scope, a record of what they reached, a human in the loop where it matters, and a key you can revoke. The picture of who can reach what covers both kinds of reader at once.
Alright. But our knowledge isn't only in the tools you connect.
It rarely is, which is why connector breadth is a fair thing to weigh, and Glean's is wider.
What Brain offers instead is that everything it does reach is governed identically. One policy, one record, one answer to who saw what, rather than a governed core and an ungoverned edge.
And we can't start without procurement getting involved?
With Brain you can. It is free to start and self-serve, so you can prove the value on your own data before anyone signs anything.
That is a real difference in kind rather than degree. Glean is quoted by its sales team and licensed per user per month, which suits an organisation standardising deliberately, and suits a team wanting to try something this week rather less.
At a glance
| Attribute | Brain | Glean |
|---|---|---|
| Permission-aware | YesYes, with field-level redaction inside a document | YesYes, enforced against each user's source permissions |
| How you buy | Free to start, transparent self-serve tiers, individuals through to enterprise | Sales-led, with pricing quoted rather than published |
| Licensing | Per seat, published | Per user, per month |
| Audit and proof | YesContent-blind, tamper-evident record you can re-verify offline, with an optional on-chain anchor | PartlyEnterprise security and access controls across the suite |
| Model and data | Bring your own model key. Nothing you connect trains a model | Runs on Glean's own platform |
| Breadth | The core governed connectors, on one governed spine | A very wide connector library and a mature enterprise search product |
Compared against publicly available information, last checked 20 September 2026. Products change. Tell us if something here is out of date: hello@heybrain.io
Who each one is for
Choose Brain if
- Teams that need a content-blind audit, or on-chain proof of what AI answered over
- Anyone who wants to start free and self-serve, without a sales process
- Teams that want to bring their own model key and keep data and usage their own
- Individuals and small teams, not only large organisations
Choose Glean if
- Large enterprises standardising on a single, full work-AI suite
- Teams that need the widest possible connector breadth out of the box
- Buyers comfortable with a sales-led, quoted enterprise contract
What the research says
67%
of enterprise security teams say they are concerned about AI tools exposing sensitive information.
Metomic
Compared against publicly available information, last checked 20 September 2026. Products change. Tell us if something here is out of date: hello@heybrain.io
We are not running another rollout this quarter.
You would not be. Brain reads the tools you already use, in place, with their permissions intact.
There is no index to plan, no migration window and no change-management programme. Connect a source and it is governed from the first query.
Join the waitlistQuestions, answered
- Is Brain a Glean alternative?
- For teams that want governance, a provable audit and model ownership without a sales-led contract, yes. Both check permissions before answering; Brain is lighter to adopt and built around proof and ownership, while Glean is a broader enterprise search suite.
- Is one of them more secure than the other?
- Both check permissions before answering. Brain adds a content-blind, tamper-evident record and an optional on-chain anchor, which is a particular kind of provability. Glean brings mature enterprise security across a wide suite. Which matters more depends on whether you are asked to prove access or to cover more ground.
- What does each one cost?
- Brain is free to start, with published per-seat tiers. Glean licenses seats per user per month and does not publish a rate card; the figure comes from its sales team.
Other comparisons
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