Choose Glean if
Employee experience first
Your sources are mostly SaaS tools, you want results in weeks, and nobody on your team will own search tuning.
Coveo vs Glean:which one should power your intranet search?
Coveo and Glean can both index ServiceNow, SharePoint, Confluence and dozens of other systems, and both put a generative AI layer on top. They come from different places. Coveo is a search and relevance platform used on websites, support portals and intranets. Glean is a work assistant built for employees, with search, chat and agents in one product.
Written by an official Coveo implementation partner with a former Coveo backend developer on the team. We are not a Glean partner, and we tell clients when Glean is the better fit.
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TL;DR
The honest short answer
Glean is the faster path to a polished employee search and assistant experience, especially when most of your knowledge lives in modern SaaS tools and you have no in-house search practice. You buy it per user.
Coveo is the stronger choice when the same platform must also serve your website or support portal, when you need fine control over relevance, or when you already pay for Coveo on another surface. It needs an owner who tunes it over time.
Choose Coveo if
One platform, full control
You want one index for intranet, website and support, you need fine relevance control, or Coveo is already in place.
12-dimension matrix
| Dimension | Coveo | Glean |
|---|---|---|
| Primary audience | Customers and employees: websites, support portals, commerce and workplace search | Employees: workplace search, assistant and agents |
| Pricing model | Entitlement-based for websites and support (queries, indexed items). Seat-based plans for workplace search. Quote-based, USD or CAD | Per user per month. Core Suite, or Enterprise Flex with pooled FlexCredits for agents and advanced AI. Quote-based |
| Time to value | Weeks to months, with relevance tuning after launch | WinnerFast pilot with polished defaults out of the box |
| Connectors to workplace SaaS | Native connectors for ServiceNow, SharePoint, Salesforce, Sitecore and more, plus universal connectors and APIs | Winner100+ prebuilt connectors focused on workplace apps |
| Permissions | Item permissions indexed with the content and enforced for each user at query time | Source permissions enforced for each user, plus Glean Protect to find overshared content |
| Website and customer support search | WinnerCore use case, with front-end libraries and commerce and service offers | Not the product's focus |
| Employee assistant and agents | Generative answering, agents entitlement and APIs you assemble into your own experience | WinnerAssistant, no-code agent builder and MCP support ready for employees |
| Relevance tuning | WinnerQuery pipelines, ML models, A/B tests and detailed analytics | Strong defaults with a smaller tuning surface |
| Deployment options | Multi-tenant SaaS with regional data residency | WinnerGlean Hosted (single-tenant) or Customer Hosted in your own GCP or AWS account |
| Canadian data residency | WinnerCanadian region available | Regional data residency offered. Confirm Canadian availability with Glean |
| Security certifications and AI data | GDPR, HIPAA add-on, document-level security | WinnerSOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, zero data retention with LLM providers |
| Reusing an existing contract | WinnerExtends an existing Coveo website or support contract | Net-new vendor, contract and security review |
When to choose each
Run the same decision in five steps: inventory your sources, get each vendor's security model in writing, pilot both on the same content for two weeks, compare total cost (licence, implementation and vendor footprint), and name a permanent owner.
Choose Glean
If your knowledge lives in SaaS tools
- Most content sits in Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Confluence, Jira or similar tools
- You have no internal search team and do not plan to build one
- Leadership wants visible wins for employees within a quarter
- Employees want an assistant and agents, not just a search box
- Glean's connector list covers your key sources out of the box
- Security prefers a single-tenant or customer-hosted deployment
Choose Coveo
If search is a platform decision
- ServiceNow and SharePoint are central and permissions are complex
- Your security review requires detailed control over how permissions are indexed
- Coveo already runs your website or support search
- You need strong French and English results with Canadian data residency
- You want one search platform across intranet, website and support
- You have, or will hire, someone to own relevance
Running both is a real option
Many organizations do not need to pick one engine for every audience.
Coveo for customers, Glean for employees
If Coveo already powers your website or support portal, keep it there. Customer-facing search depends on relevance tuning, analytics and front-end control, which is where Coveo is strongest.
Scenario: a bilingual insurer runs Coveo on its public site and agent portal, then adds Glean for employees who mostly work in Microsoft 365, Slack and Jira. Each tool has its own owner, and the security team reviews both permission models once.
The cost is two vendors and two contracts. Do it only when each surface has a clear owner and budget.
If you need to switch
From Coveo to Glean
Moving employee search to a work assistant
- Separate employee search from any website or support use of Coveo, which usually stays
- Map each Coveo source to a Glean connector and flag the gaps
- Validate permissions on sensitive collections before go-live
- Run a two-week pilot with real employees on the same content
- Plan change management for the new assistant and agents
Main effort driver: the number of workplace tools to connect and their permission models
From Glean to Coveo
Consolidating on one search platform
- Inventory sources and the connectors you rely on in Glean
- Configure Coveo sources and validate permission indexing
- Rebuild the search interface on the intranet with Coveo libraries
- Set up generative answering and tune query pipelines
- Train the owner who will run relevance after launch
Main effort driver: the connectors, permissions and relevance tuning to set up in Coveo
Common questions
Is Glean cheaper than Coveo?
Neither vendor publishes list prices. Glean licenses per user per month, with an Enterprise Flex option that adds pooled credits for agents (Glean documentation). Coveo prices websites and support by usage entitlements and offers seat-based plans for workplace search (Coveo pricing). If you already pay for Coveo, extending it can cost less than adding a new vendor. Compare three-year totals, including implementation and the time of the person who runs it.
Can Glean power our public website search?
Glean is built for employees, so it is not the usual choice for public website or customer support search. That is a core use case for Coveo. If you need both, see the hybrid option above.
Which one is more secure?
Both enforce source permissions for every user. Coveo indexes item permissions with the content and filters at query time. Glean enforces source permissions, publishes SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications, and offers single-tenant or customer-hosted deployment. Ask each vendor to document its permission model in writing and test it on your most sensitive collection. Our article on permission-aware enterprise search explains what to check.
Which handles bilingual French and English content better?
Both index multilingual content. Coveo is headquartered in Quebec City, works with many bilingual Canadian organizations and offers a Canadian data region. With Glean, confirm Canadian data residency and test French queries during the pilot.
How long should a pilot take?
Two weeks is usually enough if both tools index the same sources and the same group of employees tests them on real questions. Measure answer quality, permission accuracy and adoption, not just demo impressions.
What about Microsoft Search and Copilot?
If your content lives almost entirely in Microsoft 365, the Microsoft tools may cover enough. Once ServiceNow, Salesforce or a CMS enter the picture, a dedicated platform usually returns better results. Read Coveo vs Microsoft Search for that comparison, or see our smart intranet approach.
Planning an intranet search project?
Bring your source list and your security requirements. We will tell you which tool fits, including when the answer is Glean.
