COMPARISON

BeforeQuery vs Inkeep

Both platforms deliver embeddable AI chat and search for developer documentation. This comparison covers retrieval architecture, GitHub indexing, Slack and Discord bots, versioned docs support, and pricing model — based on publicly available information.

Feature comparison

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

Feature
BeforeQuery
Inkeep
Retrieval method
Hybrid: pgvector semantic + BM25 full-text, RRF fusion, LLM query rewrite, cross-encoder re-ranking
Semantic vector search with keyword fallback
Website / docs crawling
Yes — sitemap and link discovery, incremental sync
Yes
GitHub & GitLab repo indexing
Yes — READMEs, docs/, ADRs, changelogs. Git-push webhook for incremental sync. Self-hosted GitLab supported.
GitHub supported
Slack bot
Yes — /askai slash command and @mention. Included on Pro and Enterprise.
Available
Discord bot
Yes — slash command and @mention. Included on Pro and Enterprise.
Available
Web widget
Yes — hosted at widget.beforequery.com. reCAPTCHA bot protection. Full CSS override.
Yes — embeddable widget
React component
Yes — @beforequery/react. <BeforeQueryChat /> and useBeforeQuery headless hook.
React component available
JavaScript / Node SDK
Yes — @beforequery/sdk. Framework-agnostic. Targets web, React Native, Node.js.
Available
Open REST API
Yes — fully documented. WebSocket streaming. No gating on API access.
API available
Collections & per-collection permissions
Yes — group sources, scope client keys per collection
Project-level scoping
Versioned documentation
Yes — v1, v2, latest tags on sources. Per-version client keys.
Not documented
Bot protection (reCAPTCHA)
Yes — widget.beforequery.com includes reCAPTCHA. Invisible to real users.
Not documented
Suggested questions & related articles
Yes — included in every chat response
Available in some configurations
Analytics & daily trends
Yes — conversations, feedback ratio, gaps, daily trends on all plans
Analytics dashboard available
AI evals (groundedness, citation quality)
Yes — automated LLM-as-judge evals, scores exportable via API
Quality monitoring available
Pricing transparency
Public pricing page. Free plan included. No per-seat fees.
Contact for pricing

Where BeforeQuery focuses differently

Hybrid search with intelligent query rewriting

BeforeQuery runs LLM query rewrite and expansion before hitting the retrieval layer. This means a user asking 'how do I auth' will retrieve the same chunks as 'authentication SDK setup guide'. Combined with RRF fusion and cross-encoder re-ranking, the top-K results are more relevant with less prompt engineering.

Git-push incremental sync for repos

BeforeQuery installs a lightweight webhook in your GitHub or GitLab repository. Every push to the configured branch triggers an incremental re-index of changed files only — no full re-crawls, no manual triggers. Your chatbot always answers from the current state of your codebase.

Versioned docs and per-collection access control

Serve v1, v2, and latest independently. Collections let you issue separate client keys for each version or audience segment, so users querying your legacy docs never receive answers from your current-version content. Useful for multi-product teams and long-tail version support.

Full public pricing with a free tier

BeforeQuery publishes all plan limits and prices openly. The free plan includes 1 project, 500 indexed pages, and 100 AI questions per month — enough to evaluate the platform end-to-end without a sales conversation.

See for yourself

Connect your docs and get your first AI-powered answer in under 5 minutes. No credit card required.