Why Lucenia Beats Glean for
Enterprise Search Infrastructure
Glean promises unified workplace search powered by AI. But beneath the marketing:
"It's a search tool, not infrastructure you control."
Glean is a black-box SaaS product with opaque pricing, limited customization, and zero deployment flexibility.
For teams who need real search infrastructure — not just another AI assistant — there's a better path.
Trusted by platform teams who need search that scales with AI
10 Reasons Glean Falls Short
Before you commit to Glean, understand the full picture of what you're buying into.
Opaque and Expensive Pricing
Black Box Infrastructure
Cloud-Only, No Data Control
Limited to SaaS Connectors
Search Assistant, Not a Platform
Inconsistent Search Quality
Complete Vendor Lock-in
Not Built for Developers
Runs on OpenSearch
Your Data in Their Hands
Opaque and Expensive Pricing
Glean's pricing model is designed to maximize vendor revenue, not customer value:
"Minimum ACV starts at $50K and scales with headcount. 10% support fees cannot be removed from your contract."
— Vendr Enterprise Pricing Research"POC trials can cost up to $70K depending on scope."
— GoSearch Competitive AnalysisYou're paying enterprise prices for a search tool — not search infrastructure you control.
Black Box Infrastructure
Glean operates as a complete black box with no transparency into how it works:
"It's a search tool, not a full workflow engine. Glean is excellent at finding information but stops short of helping you act on it."
— Slite Product Review"Tricky setup requiring significant technical oversight to configure properly."
— Gartner Peer ReviewsWhen search quality degrades, you have no tools to diagnose or fix it.
Cloud-Only, No Data Control
Glean offers no on-premise or hybrid deployment options:
"Unexpected data disclosure issues were encountered during the initial setup and configuration phase."
— Gartner Peer ReviewsFor industries with strict data governance requirements, Glean is often simply not an option.
Limited to SaaS Connectors
Glean connects to common SaaS tools but struggles with custom data sources:
"Getting Glean to work with our internal tools required a $40K professional services engagement."
— Reddit r/EnterpriseSearch DiscussionIf your data doesn't live in Slack, Google, or Salesforce, Glean becomes expensive and limited.
Search Assistant, Not a Platform
Glean is an AI assistant layer, not foundational search infrastructure:
"Glean is great for employees searching documents, but it's not something you can build on top of."
— Hacker News Enterprise ThreadGlean is a search assistant — not the search infrastructure your platform needs.
Inconsistent Search Quality
Users report hit-or-miss search results despite Glean's AI claims:
"Sometimes Glean finds exactly what I need. Other times it completely misses obvious documents."
— G2 Enterprise ReviewsAI-powered doesn't mean accurate — and you have no way to fix it.
Complete Vendor Lock-in
Once you're on Glean, leaving is extremely difficult:
"Organizations report that after 12-18 months on Glean, the switching costs become prohibitive due to user adoption and lost configuration."
— Reddit r/EnterpriseSearch DiscussionGlean knows that once you're locked in, you have no leverage.
Not Built for Developers
Glean is designed for end users, not engineering teams:
"If you're looking to build search into your product or create custom search experiences, Glean isn't designed for that use case."
— Stack Overflow Enterprise DiscussionFor developer teams, Glean is a dead end.
Runs on OpenSearch
Behind Glean's polished interface is commodity search technology you could run yourself:
"When you peel back the layers, you're essentially paying Glean to host OpenSearch for you with an AI interface on top."
— OpenSearch Community DiscussionWhy pay Glean's premium when the core technology is open source?
Your Data in Their Hands
Using Glean means trusting a third party with your most sensitive corporate data:
"Every document you index in Glean is data you're trusting to their cloud. For regulated industries, that's often a non-starter."
— Enterprise Security ForumYou're handing over your crown jewels and hoping their security is good enough.
The Bottom Line
Choosing Glean means accepting:
"AI-powered workplace search made easy."
"Another SaaS dependency with no exit strategy."
There's a Better Way
Lucenia gives you enterprise search infrastructure you actually control — with none of Glean's limitations.
Transparent, predictable pricing
No surprise fees, no $50K minimums, no rigid contracts
Full visibility and control
Tune ranking, customize relevance, debug issues
Deploy anywhere
Cloud, on-premise, hybrid, or air-gapped environments
Connect any data source
APIs for custom integrations and proprietary systems
Developer-first platform
Build custom search experiences with full API access
Purpose-built search technology
Next-generation architecture, not a wrapper on commodity infrastructure
Complete data sovereignty
Keep your data on-premise or in your own cloud — never in ours
Ready to Own Your Search Infrastructure?
Stop paying $50K+ for a black box. Get search infrastructure that scales with your AI initiatives.