Comparison

BeforeQuery vs Glean

Glean is an enterprise AI search and assistant platform for a company's internal SaaS apps. BeforeQuery is an AI knowledge assistant focused on developer-facing docs and customer-facing support, with an internal Ask assistant included. This comparison covers scope, integrations, protocols, and pricing — based on publicly available information.

Feature comparison

Information about Glean is based on their public website and documentation.

Feature
BeforeQuery
Glean
Primary focus
Developer-facing docs AI and customer-facing support, plus an internal Ask assistant for your team
Internal enterprise search and AI assistant across a company's SaaS apps
Customer-facing web widget
Yes — embeddable 'Ask AI' widget hosted at widget.beforequery.com, themable, public client keys
Internal-first; designed for authenticated employees
Retrieval method
Hybrid: pgvector semantic + BM25 full-text, RRF fusion, LLM query rewrite, cross-encoder re-ranking
Proprietary enterprise search with knowledge graph and personalization
Website / docs crawling
Yes — sitemap and link discovery, incremental sync
Web connectors available
GitHub & GitLab repo indexing
Yes — READMEs, docs/, ADRs, changelogs. Git-push webhook for incremental sync. Self-hosted GitLab supported.
Yes — engineering connectors
Connector breadth
Websites, GitHub/GitLab, Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, SharePoint, Slack, Zendesk, Jira, Linear, Salesforce, files, and more
100+ enterprise SaaS connectors
Slack & Discord bots
Yes — /askai slash command and @mention. Included on Pro and Enterprise.
Slack integration available
JavaScript / React SDKs
Yes — @beforequery/sdk and @beforequery/react, open source, published to npm
APIs available to customers
MCP server
Yes — per-knowledge-base MCP endpoint (search_docs, ask_question, list_sources), client-key auth
MCP support available
A2A protocol
Yes — public AgentCard and message/send per knowledge base
Not documented
Answer citations
Yes — every answer links to the exact source passages it was grounded in
Yes — results link to source documents
Support ticket deflection
Yes — helpdesk integrations, form deflection endpoint with confidence scores, copilot drafts
Support agent products available
AI evals (groundedness, citation quality)
Yes — automated LLM-as-judge evals, scores exportable via API
Not documented
Pricing transparency
Public pricing page. Free plan included. No per-seat fees.
Per-seat enterprise pricing; contact sales
Time to first answer
Self-serve — connect a docs URL and get answers in minutes
Enterprise deployment with onboarding

Where BeforeQuery focuses differently

Built for your users, not just your employees

Glean is designed for internal enterprise search behind your company's SSO. BeforeQuery serves both audiences: a public widget, SDKs, and bots answer questions for your customers and developer community, while the internal Ask assistant with per-knowledge-base permissions serves your team.

Open protocols out of the box

Every BeforeQuery knowledge base exposes an MCP server (search_docs, ask_question, list_sources) and an A2A endpoint with a public AgentCard, authenticated by client keys. AI IDEs like Cursor and agent frameworks can query your knowledge directly with one endpoint.

Self-serve with transparent pricing

BeforeQuery publishes all plan limits and prices openly, with a free plan that includes 1 knowledge base, 500 indexed pages, and 100 AI questions per month. You can evaluate the full platform end-to-end without a sales conversation or enterprise procurement cycle.

Citation-grounded RAG with evals

Every answer links to the exact source passages it was grounded in, and automated LLM-as-judge evals continuously score groundedness and citation quality per knowledge base — so answer quality is a metric you track, not an anecdote.

Frequently asked questions

How is BeforeQuery different from Glean?

Glean is an enterprise AI search and assistant platform focused on a company's internal SaaS apps, sold at enterprise per-seat pricing. BeforeQuery focuses on developer-facing docs AI and customer-facing support — a public widget, open SDKs, Slack/Discord bots, and MCP/A2A endpoints — with an internal Ask assistant included, and transparent public pricing with a free tier.

Can BeforeQuery replace Glean for internal knowledge?

For many teams, yes. BeforeQuery ingests GitHub, Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, SharePoint, Slack, and more into permissioned knowledge bases, and workspace members query them through the internal Ask assistant or Slack bot. If your primary need is personalized search across a very large portfolio of enterprise SaaS apps, Glean's connector catalog is broader.

Does BeforeQuery support enterprise security requirements?

Yes. BeforeQuery supports OIDC and SAML 2.0 SSO, per-knowledge-base chat permissions, document-level visibility (public vs. restricted), PII masking, workspace audit logs, and GDPR/DPA compliance on enterprise plans.

Does BeforeQuery support the same integrations?

BeforeQuery ships a web widget, React component, JavaScript/Node SDK, Slack and Discord bots, an open REST API with WebSocket streaming, an MCP server per knowledge base, and helpdesk integrations for ticket deflection and copilot drafts.

Do answers include citations?

Yes. Every answer links to the exact source passages it was grounded in, and automated LLM-as-judge evals continuously score groundedness and citation quality.

Is my data used to train AI models?

No. Your connected content and your users' conversations are never used to train models. Content is indexed solely to answer questions for your knowledge base, and PII masking and retention controls are built in.

Is this comparison up to date?

The Glean column is based on publicly available information from their website and documentation. If you spot something outdated, contact us and we'll correct it.

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