Glean vs Manus: Which AI agent is better?
Compare pricing, AI models, integrations, security posture, pros, cons, and buyer fit before choosing the right AI productivity agent for your workflow.
Verdict: Glean vs Manus
Pick Glean if you need ai-powered enterprise workplace search across slack, gdrive, jira, and 100+ apps. Pick Manus if you need general-purpose autonomous ai agent for complex multi-step tasks.
Glean integrates with 13 platforms.
Glean
Glean is the leading enterprise AI work assistant — a search-and-answer engine that indexes your company's entire content footprint (Slack, Google Drive, Confluence, Notion, Jira, GitHub, Salesforce, ...
- Indexes 100+ enterprise apps with permission-aware retrieval
- Glean Assistant: chat with your company's entire knowledge
- Glean Protect: real-time DLP + sensitive-data classification
- Glean Agents: build custom AI workflows on company data
- Cross-app search results sorted by personal relevance
- Permission-aware retrieval — no data-leakage risk across employees
- 100+ integrations cover most enterprise stacks out of the box
- Cited answers ground AI in your actual company knowledge (not hallucinated)
- Premium pricing — typical mid-market commitments start ~$30-50/employee/year
- Sales-led with no transparent pricing or self-serve trial
Manus
Manus is a general-purpose autonomous AI agent that gained massive viral attention in 2025 for its ability to plan and execute complex multi-step tasks across the web — research, analysis, writing, co...
- General-purpose autonomous agent for any web task
- Multi-step planning + tool use + code execution
- Persistent memory across sessions
- Cloud sandboxed execution environment
- Verifiable output artifacts (docs, sheets, code, diagrams)
- Most capable general-purpose autonomous agent shipped to date
- Verifiable output artifacts make quality review tractable
- Strong on research-heavy multi-source synthesis tasks
- Higher cost than focused agents (Devin for code, Operator for browser)
- Long-running tasks can consume credits unpredictably
Who should buy this
Glean
- Mid-market or enterprise CIO / CTO consolidating internal AI search
- Knowledge worker drowning in Slack threads + scattered docs across 20+ apps
- IT / security org wanting AI search WITH permission enforcement (not retroactive cleanup)
- SMBs and startups (cost prohibitive — ChatGPT Team or Notion AI fit better)
- Teams not on a sprawling app stack (Glean shines with 10+ data sources)
Enterprise per-employee licensing — typically $30-50/employee/year (mid-market) to $100+/employee/year (large enterprise). Glean Protect + Agents are additional.
Verified 2026-05-03
Manus
- Knowledge worker doing research-heavy multi-step tasks (consultant, analyst, researcher)
- Founder / executive offloading complex multi-source synthesis
- VC / PE professional running due diligence + competitive landscape
- Single-purpose buyers (use Devin for code, Operator for web automation)
- Buyers needing deterministic / repeatable workflows (general agents are less predictable)
Free trial. Standard: $39/mo. Pro: $200/mo. Enterprise: custom annual contracts (typically $10-50K+/yr).
Verified 2026-05-06
Capabilities at a glance
| Capability | Glean | Manus |
|---|---|---|
| 100+ enterprise app integrations | — | |
| Permission-aware retrieval | Inherits source ACLs | — |
| Cited / sourced AI answers | — | |
| Glean Protect (DLP + sensitive-data) | Add-on | — |
| Glean Agents (custom workflows) | Add-on | — |
| Slack / Teams native apps | — | |
| Public API | Closed beta | |
| On-prem / self-hosted | VPC deployment for select customers | — |
| General-purpose autonomous agent | — | |
| Multi-step planning + tool use | — | |
| Code execution in sandbox | — | |
| Web browsing + research | — | |
| Persistent session memory | — | |
| Document / spreadsheet / diagram output | — |
Security & compliance
| Standard / control | Glean | Manus |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 | Type II | — |
| ISO 27001 | — | |
| HIPAA | — | |
| GDPR | ||
| SSO / SAML | — | |
| RBAC | — | |
| Audit logs | — | |
| Trains on customer data | No | — |
What users say
Glean
Plaid, Pinterest, Redis, Zapier, Databricks, Webflow, Grammarly, Duolingo, WealthSimple, Citi, Intuit, Samsung, Booking.com, Instacart, Zillow, Rivian, Samsara
Manus
Y Combinator startups, Independent consultants, VC firms running due diligence
Frequently asked questions
What AI models do Glean and Manus use?+
Glean runs on GPT-4 family, Claude family, Glean proprietary retrieval models. Manus runs on Claude Opus + Sonnet, GPT-5 family, Custom Manus orchestration models.
What is the main difference between Glean and Manus?+
Glean is positioned as best ai-powered enterprise workplace search across slack, gdrive, jira, and 100+ apps, while Manus is positioned as best general-purpose autonomous ai agent for complex multi-step tasks. Pick the one whose strength aligns with your primary use case.
Which has better integrations, Glean or Manus?+
Glean integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, Notion and 9 more. Manus integrates with Web browsing, Code execution sandbox, Document export (PDF, DOCX, XLSX), API (closed beta).
What are the main weaknesses of Glean and Manus?+
Glean's main drawback: premium pricing — typical mid-market commitments start ~$30-50/employee/year. Manus's main drawback: higher cost than focused agents (devin for code, operator for browser).
Are Glean and Manus worth it in 2026?+
Both remain competitive productivity options in 2026. Glean stands out for permission-aware retrieval — no data-leakage risk across employees. Manus stands out for most capable general-purpose autonomous agent shipped to date. Choose based on which trade-offs fit your workflow and budget.