Pinchy vs Glean
Glean is a proprietary "enterprise AI" platform — company-wide search and assistants across 100+ apps, operated by Glean in your single-tenant cloud, sold to large organizations. Pinchy is open source (AGPL) and self-hosted: you run it, with per-agent permissions and a signed audit trail in the free tier. Different scale, different shape.
The Core Difference
Index the whole company across 100+ apps, then search, ask, and let agents act on it. Glean operates the platform in your single-tenant cloud. The center of gravity is enterprise-wide knowledge at scale.
Run a single Docker stack on your own servers, with your own models. The center of gravity is governed action: which tools each agent may use, a signed record of every call, and a price a small team can afford.
Glean is closed-source and operated by Glean, even in your cloud. Pinchy is AGPL-3.0: you can read the code, change it, patch it on your schedule, and run it air-gapped. No vendor sits between you and the software.
Side by Side
Figures as of June 2026. Glean does not publish pricing; figures are independent estimates. Check each vendor for current details.
| Glean | Pinchy | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Enterprise AI search & assistant | Self-hosted agent platform |
| License | Proprietary (closed source) | AGPL-3.0 (open source) |
| Who operates it | Glean (single-tenant in your cloud) | You (Docker, your servers) |
| Inspect / modify the code | No | Yes |
| Free tier | No (sales-led, enterprise) | Yes (AGPL, free) |
| Pricing | ~Six figures/yr, per-seat, annual | Free + flat Pro (not per seat) |
| Typical buyer | Large enterprise (seat minimums) | Small / mid-market teams |
| Local models / offline | Cloud LLMs | Ollama, fully offline |
| Connectors | 100+ enterprise apps | Odoo, Gmail, Telegram, web, docs |
| Per-agent tool permissions | Enterprise governance | Allow-list per agent |
| Audit of agent actions | Enterprise governance | HMAC-signed per row, free, CSV export |
Being Honest
Glean indexes 100+ enterprise apps with a knowledge graph and permission-aware retrieval built for very large organizations. For company-wide search across everything, it operates at a scale Pinchy does not target.
Slack, Teams, Zoom, Zendesk, GitHub, Confluence, Salesforce and dozens more, out of the box. Pinchy's integration list (Odoo, Gmail, Telegram, web, docs) is deliberately focused.
Glean is a funded, mature platform with single-tenant deployment, enterprise compliance, and large-organization references. For Fortune-500-scale procurement, that track record matters.
Glean runs the platform for you, even in your own cloud. If you do not want to operate infrastructure and have the budget, that is a real advantage over self-hosting Pinchy.
Where Pinchy Wins
Pinchy is AGPL-3.0. Read the code, modify it, fork it, patch on your own schedule. With Glean, you depend on a proprietary vendor for every change, even when it runs in your cloud.
One Docker Compose stack on your own servers, your own models. Paired with Ollama, nothing leaves your network — air-gapped if you need it. No telemetry, no phone-home, no vendor operating your deployment.
Pinchy is free under AGPL with a flat Pro tier — not a six-figure annual contract with seat minimums. A three-person team and a fifty-person team can both start today.
Every agent starts with zero tools; admins enable each one explicitly. Every tool call is recorded in an individually HMAC-signed audit row you can export and verify — in the free tier.
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 one connector among hundreds.
Before an agent sends an email, it can draft instead of sending, so a human reviews before it goes out (a separate send permission must be granted explicitly). For business-system writes like Odoo, every action is gated by a per-agent allow-list — an agent only creates or updates records you've explicitly permitted.
Decision Guide
You are a large organization that needs company-wide AI search and assistants across 100+ apps at scale, want a managed single-tenant deployment, and have an enterprise budget.
You want open-source, self-run agents you fully control, with per-agent governance and a signed audit, at a price a small or mid-sized team can afford — especially if Odoo is central.
Do you need enterprise-wide knowledge search at scale, operated for you? That is Glean. Or self-hosted, affordable, governed agents you run and own? That is Pinchy.
FAQ
For teams that want open-source, self-hosted, affordable agents they run themselves, yes — though the two differ in scope. Glean is a proprietary enterprise AI search and assistant platform built for large organizations, operated by Glean in your single-tenant cloud. Pinchy is an AGPL, self-hosted agent platform you run on your own infrastructure, with per-agent permissions and a signed audit trail in its free tier.
No. Glean is a proprietary, closed-source platform. It can run in your single-tenant cloud for data residency, but Glean operates the deployment and you cannot inspect or modify the code. Pinchy is AGPL-3.0: you run it yourself with a single Docker Compose stack and can audit and change every part of it.
Glean is sales-led with no public pricing; independent 2026 estimates put entry around six figures per year, with seat minimums in the dozens to hundreds. Pinchy is free under AGPL-3.0 and adds a flat Pro tier for team governance — not per seat — which makes it accessible to small and mid-sized teams as well as larger ones.
Glean runs in your single-tenant cloud, which keeps data in your environment, but Glean operates that deployment. Pinchy runs on infrastructure you operate yourself; paired with a local model via Ollama, no prompt or document ever leaves your network, and the license is validated offline so Pinchy never phones home.
Choose Glean when you are a large organization that needs company-wide AI search and assistants across 100+ enterprise apps at scale, with a managed single-tenant deployment and an enterprise budget. Choose Pinchy when you want open-source, self-run, affordable agents with per-agent governance and a signed audit, especially for small or mid-sized teams or Odoo-centric work.
Self-host Pinchy yourself in minutes, or book a call to talk it through. Your choice.
Or email us: info@heypinchy.com