A CLEAR COMPARISONLucidworks vs. GleanEnterprise AI requires enterprise-grade security. Glean doesn’t have It.
Glean has built a “Work AI” platform with a simple, user-friendly interface that employees love. But beneath this consumer-grade surface lies a critical failure that should concern any enterprise leader: a profound lack of enterprise-grade security and governance.
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Feature‑by‑Feature: Lucidworks vs. Glean
| Capability | Lucidworks | Glean |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise Security & Governance | Provides the robust guardrails, data governance, and security trimming that your CISO demands. | Its most significant weakness is the lack of critical enterprise-grade security features, such as RBAC and security trimming. |
| Use Case Scope | A single platform for both internal (workplace) and external, revenue-generating (e-commerce, support) applications. | Primarily focused on internal, employee-facing search, with a less proven track record in customer-facing applications. |
| AI Model Flexibility & Control | A true “Bring Your Own Model” platform with deep AI pipeline customization for data science teams. | A “black box” AI that does not currently offer a BYOM option, limiting flexibility for enterprises with specific needs. |
| Deployment Flexibility | Adapts to your infrastructure with full support for on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployments. | Primarily a cloud-native solution, which limits options for enterprises with strict data residency or hybrid-cloud needs. |
| Regulated Industry Readiness | A trusted choice for regulated industries, with robust, auditable AI, explainability, and superior security. | Still nascent, the company is building its feature set for highly regulated industries that require deep compliance customizations. |
| Market Position & Longevity | A mature, high-value platform for complex, domain-specific challenges that native tools can’t handle. | First-mover advantage is “rapidly eroding” as functionality is being “cannibalized” by native AI in tools like Slack and Microsoft 365. |
| User Engagement Trends | Drives value in high-impact, mission-critical applications across the enterprise. | Customer usage has “dropped significantly” as the initial novelty wears off and “good enough” alternatives emerge. |
| Total Cost of Ownership | A more flexible and cost-effective path to AI with modular pricing and a lower TCO for enterprise-wide deployment. | Premium positioning is under pressure to drop, and new features will be charged as add-on SKUs, potentially increasing costs. |
| User-Centric Design & Simplicity | An open, extensible platform designed for power users, data scientists, and developers to build tailored solutions. | Praised for its intuitive, consumer-like search experience, leading to high initial user adoption rates. |
| Initial Market Momentum | A mature, established leader in enterprise search and AI. | Has demonstrated rapid growth and high investor confidence, creating significant market momentum. |
Expert analysis reveals Glean’s most significant weakness is its failure to provide essential security features like Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and security trimming. Administrators cannot control or govern who has access to what information, a security gap that has directly prevented their customers from performing broader rollouts. While Glean built a great search bar for your employees, Lucidworks built an intelligent enterprise platform that connects your employees and your customers with the guardrails and governance that your CISO demands.
In an environment where AI without governance is just a liability, the choice is clear. Don’t risk your company’s data on a tool with documented security failures; choose the mature, secure, and flexible platform built for the enterprise.
Customer win: When the CISO slams the brakes on "Shadow AI".
A fast-growing tech company rolled out a pilot of Glean to their engineering department. The feedback was immediate and ecstatic—the team loved the simple interface and how quickly they could find internal documents, saving them hours each week. The Head of Engineering championed a company-wide rollout to replicate this success.
However, the plan came to a screeching halt in the CISO’s office. The security team’s audit revealed Glean’s critical failure: the platform lacked the granular, role-based access controls and security trimming necessary to operate safely in an enterprise environment. The CISO could not govern who saw what information, and the “black box” AI offered no auditable trail. A full rollout was deemed an unacceptable security risk, preventing the company from enabling the very AI agent features they were excited about.
The company turned to Lucidworks. With Lucidworks, the CISO got the enterprise-grade governance and security trimming they demanded, while the data science team got the “Bring Your Model” flexibility they needed. They successfully deployed a secure AI platform across both their internal teams and their customer-facing support portal, delivering a strategic solution that satisfied both employees and security leaders—a win that Glean simply could not provide.
