Pinchy vs Dust
Dust is a polished, multiplayer AI-assistant platform — its MIT core is public, but the product is a managed cloud with broad SaaS connectors and enterprise compliance. Pinchy is self-hosted first: AGPL, per-agent tool permissions, and an HMAC-signed audit trail in the free tier, fully offline with local models. Both are open source. They optimize for different things.
The Core Difference
Connect your SaaS tools, build assistants your whole team shares, and let Dust run it for you. The center of gravity is a polished, collaborative assistant product, hosted and operated by Dust.
Pinchy runs on your own infrastructure — one Docker Compose stack, your models, your data. The center of gravity is governance: which tools each agent may use, and a signed record of every tool call.
Dust's core is MIT and Pinchy is AGPL-3.0, so neither locks you in at the code level. The difference is the product bet: Dust optimizes for a managed cloud experience, Pinchy for running entirely on your own terms.
Side by Side
Figures as of 16 October 2026, taken from Dust's public pricing, product and documentation pages. Check Dust for current details.
| Dust | Pinchy | |
|---|---|---|
| Product model | Managed multiplayer cloud (MIT core) | Self-hosted first (AGPL) |
| License (core) | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Free tier | Yes (Free seat, 500 lifetime credits) | Yes (Community, AGPL, no user limit) |
| Pricing model | Per seat type: Free, Pro €24 and Max €120 per month billed yearly (€30 and €150 monthly), monthly credits; Enterprise via sales | Community free (AGPL), no user limit; Pro €1,188/yr for up to 10 users, quote above |
| Where data is processed | Dust cloud (US or EU residency on Business and Enterprise; single-tenant deployment on Enterprise) | Your infrastructure |
| Self-hosting | MIT code is public; no self-hosting guide in the README or docs | First-class (Docker Compose, GHCR) |
| Local models / offline | 20+ cloud models from five providers, chosen per agent; no local models | Ollama, fully offline |
| Knowledge connectors | Slack, Notion, GitHub, Drive and 20+ more sources, plus MCP servers | Odoo, email, Telegram, web search, knowledge base (folders granted per agent, answers cite their source) |
| Per-agent tool permissions | Workspace and space permissions; documented approve/reject step for agent actions | Allow-list per agent, set by an admin before the agent runs; no run-time approval step |
| Audit of agent actions | Enterprise only: tamper-evident log including agent and tool executions, CSV export, SIEM streaming | Community: every row HMAC-SHA256-signed and hash-chained, built-in verifier, CSV export |
| Enterprise compliance | SOC 2 Type II on all plans; SSO and US/EU residency on Business; SCIM, audit logs and single-tenant deployment on Enterprise | No certification yet |
| Scale / funding | $40M Series B (2026) | Early-stage, built in public |
Being Honest
Dust connects Slack, Notion, GitHub, Google Drive and 20+ more sources, and reaches other tools through MCP servers, so assistants can draw on company knowledge across tools. Pinchy has no MCP support. Its integrations are built in and deliberately narrower: Odoo, email, web search and the knowledge base.
Dust documents SOC 2 Type II on all plans, SSO and US/EU data residency on Business, and SCIM, audit logs and single-tenant deployment on Enterprise. Its Enterprise audit log is tamper-evident, records agent and tool executions, and streams to a SIEM. Pinchy has strong self-hosted governance but no compliance certification yet.
If you would rather not run infrastructure, Dust hosts and operates everything, with a multiplayer collaboration experience. Pinchy asks you to run a Docker stack and pick a model: power and control in exchange for some ops.
A $40M Series B in 2026 and a large customer base put Dust further along the maturity and trust curve than early-stage Pinchy. For some buyers, that track record is the deciding factor.
Where Pinchy Wins
Pinchy is built to run entirely on your infrastructure. With a local model via Ollama, prompts and documents stay on your network; only the external integrations you grant (web search, Gmail or Microsoft 365, Telegram) reach outside. With a local model and no external integrations, it runs fully air-gapped. There is no telemetry and no phone-home.
Dust's tamper-evident audit log is an Enterprise feature kept in Dust's cloud. Pinchy writes every tool call to an HMAC-SHA256-signed, hash-chained row in your own database, with a built-in verifier and CSV export, in the free Community edition.
The allow-list per agent, the signed audit trail, the integrations and offline operation are in the free Community edition with no user limit. Pro adds groups, agent visibility and usage analytics (€1,188/yr for up to 10 users, quote above). The licence covers neither your servers nor model usage.
Agents get no tools beyond their own workspace until an admin grants them, per agent; templates propose a starting set, and only admins create agents. The knowledge base works the same way: document folders are granted per agent, indexed locally, and answers cite their source page.
Pinchy ships a deep Odoo integration: query stock, create orders, reconcile invoices, all from chat or Telegram. Acting inside an ERP is a first-class use case, not a generic connector.
Dust documents an approve/reject step for agent actions. Pinchy has no run-time approval step. The limit is what the agent was granted: email_draft without email_send, Odoo read tools without write tools, or no tools until an admin grants them.
Decision Guide
You want a managed, multiplayer assistant cloud with broad SaaS connectors and MCP servers, and SOC 2 Type II, SSO and US/EU data residency without running anything yourself.
Data must stay on your own infrastructure or fully offline, you want a per-agent allow-list and a signed audit trail held in your own database, and Odoo is central to the work.
Where must the data live, and who operates the platform? If the answer is "our servers, run by us", that points to Pinchy. If it is "managed by the vendor, with broad connectors", that points to Dust.
FAQ
For teams that want self-hosted, governance-first agents on their own infrastructure, yes. Both are open-source AI agent platforms — Dust's core is MIT, Pinchy is AGPL-3.0 — but they optimize for different things. Dust is a polished, multiplayer assistant cloud with broad SaaS connectors. Pinchy runs on your own servers, with per-agent tool permissions and a signed audit trail in its free Community edition.
Dust's core codebase is open source under the MIT license and public on GitHub. In practice, the Dust product is a managed multiplayer cloud: that is where the connectors, polish, and support live, and the public README and documentation describe the cloud product and contain no self-hosting guide. Pinchy is self-hosted first: a single Docker Compose stack with pre-built images is the primary way to run it.
Dust sells seats within its Business plan (for teams up to 100 people): a Free seat (EUR 0, 500 lifetime credits), Pro (EUR 24 per seat per month billed yearly, EUR 30 monthly, 8,000 credits a month) and Max (EUR 120 yearly, EUR 150 monthly, 40,000 credits a month), excluding VAT as of 16 October 2026. Enterprise is priced through sales. Pinchy Community is free under AGPL-3.0 with no user limit and includes the per-agent allow-list, the signed audit trail and the integrations. Pro adds groups, agent visibility and usage analytics for EUR 1,188 per year for up to 10 users, with a quote above that. Pinchy's licence covers neither your servers nor model usage.
With Dust's managed cloud, your prompts and connected data are processed by Dust; US or EU data residency is available on the Business and Enterprise plans, and Enterprise adds single-tenant deployment. With Pinchy, data stays on your own infrastructure, and with a local model via Ollama, prompts and documents stay on your network; only the external integrations you grant reach outside. The license key is validated offline, so Pinchy never phones home.
Choose Dust when you want a managed, multiplayer assistant cloud with broad SaaS connectors (Slack, Notion, GitHub, Drive and 20+ more sources) and MCP servers, SOC 2 Type II on all plans, and SSO and US/EU data residency without running anything yourself. Choose Pinchy when data must stay on your infrastructure or offline, when you want a per-agent allow-list and a signed audit trail held in your own database, and especially when Odoo is central to the work. Pinchy needs a server you run and a model you pick.
Self-host Pinchy yourself in minutes, or book a call to talk it through. Your choice.
Or email us: info@heypinchy.com