Glean vs Cabinet: find knowledge, or own it
Glean searches the tools your company already uses and answers questions across them, and it does that well at enterprise scale. It holds nothing of its own. Cabinet is the other half of the problem: the place knowledge is authored, owned, and put to work, as files on your infrastructure, with agents that write them and live dashboards rendered from them.
Last reviewed August 2026 against public pricing and docs.
Choose Cabinet if
- You want a place to author and own knowledge, not only search what is scattered across other tools.
- You want to self-host and run inference on your own model keys.
- You want agents, embedded apps, and a terminal in the same workspace as your knowledge.
Stick with Glean if
- Your primary need is federated search across dozens of existing SaaS systems.
- You need permission-aware search that mirrors complex existing access controls.
Self-hosted · your data stays yours · bring your own AI
The core difference
Glean searches your knowledge. Cabinet is where it lives.
Glean is an enterprise search and assistant layer. It connects to your existing apps, indexes them, and answers questions across them. The knowledge stays in those other tools; Glean is the lens over the top.
Cabinet is the substrate itself. Knowledge is authored as files you own, and your team and its agents read and write them directly. There is an editor, live apps and dashboards, and a terminal, because this is where work is created and shared, not only found.
If your problem is finding what is spread across many tools, Glean fits. If your problem is owning and acting on a body of knowledge, Cabinet fits.
Where Cabinet wins
Three things Glean cannot do
Author and own, do not just search
Glean has no files you own and no authoring surface. Cabinet is where knowledge is written, as Markdown on your disk, so you own the source of truth instead of an index pointing at someone else's.
Self-hosted, with your own AI keys
Run Cabinet in your environment and route inference through the model accounts you already pay for. Your most sensitive knowledge never has to leave your walls, and there is no bundled inference marked up on top.
A workspace, not a search box
Agents, live apps and dashboards, and a web terminal sit next to your knowledge, where your team works together. Cabinet is somewhere work happens, not only somewhere answers are retrieved.
Feature by feature
Cabinet vs Glean, side by side
The features that actually decide this, including the ones where Glean comes out ahead.
| Feature | Cabinet | Glean |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge you author and own as files | Included | Not included |
| Markdown on disk | Included | Not included |
| Self-hostedGlean is primarily a managed cloud deployment. | Included | Partial |
| Bring your own AI model keys | Included | Partial |
| AI agents and orchestration | Included | Included |
| Authoring / editor surface | Included | Not included |
| Visualize web apps and dashboards | Included | Not included |
| Web terminal | Included | Not included |
| Deploys without a large rollout | Included | Partial |
| Federated search across existing SaaS tools | Partial | Included |
| Permission-aware search mirroring existing ACLs | Partial | Included |
| Mature enterprise connector catalog | Partial | Included |
| Audit log and version history | Included | Partial |
Being honest
When Glean is the better choice
- Your main need is federated search across many existing SaaS systems at enterprise scale.
- You need permission-aware search that mirrors complex access controls across those tools.
- You do not need an authoring surface, self-hosting, or to own the underlying files.
Questions
Cabinet vs Glean, answered
Is Cabinet a Glean alternative?
It depends on the problem. Glean is enterprise search over your existing tools. Cabinet is where knowledge is authored and owned, with agents that act on it. Teams that want to own and create knowledge, not only search it, pick Cabinet.
Can Cabinet search across my other tools like Glean?
Glean's federated search across many SaaS connectors is more mature. Cabinet's focus is owning the knowledge itself as files, with agents reading and writing them, plus linked Git repos.
Can I self-host Cabinet instead of using a managed cloud?
Yes. Cabinet runs in your own environment with your own model keys, so sensitive knowledge stays inside your infrastructure.
Sources
Where these facts come from
Claims on this page are checked against public sources, last reviewed August 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us at hi@runcabinet.com and we will fix it.
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