Enterprise search software indexes the documents, tickets, chats and wikis a company already holds, so staff find answers without opening ten apps.
This guide ranks products by what ninety days of setup demand, how the bill grows with documents or seats, how you leave, whether a vendor runs alone, and whether the product is search or something wider.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
In short
What enterprise search software does
Enterprise search software connects to a company's internal apps and files, builds a permission-aware index, and returns ranked results or cited answers to employees from one search box.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether you can leave, and who each enterprise search tool is built for. On top of them sits one rule. The top three places are for challengers, which means vendors outside the big names, where the category has any, and the household brands come in from fourth place. Why those five, and why there is no score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Search with listed annual prices for self-managed and fully managed setups
Ranked #1 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePublished pricingNorth America
The pricing page splits the product into self-managed licences, billed yearly for one server or a three-server cluster, and fully managed plans with stated limits. Premium support comes with any licence and covers two contacts by email on weekdays; larger support tiers are quoted.
Modules named on the home page include hybrid search, recommendations, a chatbot, MCP, agents and a private LLM, and the company also describes an Adobe partnership.
What stands out
Annual list prices
On-prem or cloud
Chatbot modules
Where it costs you
The fully managed tiers carry stated caps of 10,000 documents or URLs and 100,000 searches per month.
The home page counts 300+ connectors but names none, so each source needs checking.
Right for
Teams that want a listed yearly price and the choice of running it themselves
Wrong for
Organisations indexing far more than 10,000 documents on a managed tier
United StatesPublished annual prices per deployment, self-managed or fully managed; support tiers by contact count
Document-count pricing with SaaS, on-premises and cloud native deployment
Ranked #2 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePublished pricingElsewhere
Annual billing follows the number of indexed documents, with tiers called 1M, 5M, xM and Infinity, and the page states that user count does not change the cost.
That suits a wide employee base searching a modest index and hurts a large archive with few readers. Products named include InSpire, Insight Workplace and Insight Touchpoints with pre-built agents, plus solutions for contract and proposal management.
What stands out
Priced by documents
SaaS or on-prem
500+ sources
Where it costs you
Only the entry tier has a stated price, so budgets for larger document volumes depend on a sales quote.
The home page claims over 500 sources and names none of them.
Right for
Buyers with many users but a bounded document count, wanting a deployment choice
Wrong for
Buyers who expect a single country of vendor registration
Not stated by the vendorPublished starting price per year by indexed documents, user count ignored; larger tiers quoted
Permission-aware index that deploys inside your own cloud account
Ranked #3 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestElsewhere
The home page lists connectors for Slack, Confluence, Salesforce, GitHub, Jira, SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, Notion, Teams, OneDrive, Okta and ServiceNow.
It also offers an MCP server with a search tool, so Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini can query the index. Governance covers an agent inventory, a kill switch and an audit trail with lineage. Customers hold their own keys, which shifts operating work onto the buyer.
What stands out
Permission-aware
Runs in your account
Agent audit trail
Where it costs you
No price page loaded, so cost cannot be estimated before a demo.
The home page states no country, owner or company size.
Right for
Security-minded teams that want the index to stay inside their own cloud
Wrong for
Buyers who need a price list before booking a demo
Not stated by the vendorQuoted per organisation; the only route is booking a demo
Search and chat across company apps, runnable in your own cloud
Ranked #4 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
The Business plan gives access to all major LLMs and developer APIs, while the Enterprise plan adds OIDC and SAML sign-in, on-premise deployment, dedicated support and an SLA.
Beyond search, the home page lists chat, agents, an MCP server, a desktop app, a Slackbot and a Chrome extension. Named connectors are Slack, Confluence, Google Drive, GitHub, TestRail and AWS. Self-run deployments can use open-weight models on your own GPUs.
What stands out
Per-user pricing
Air-gap option
Open-weight models
Where it costs you
A banner announces Onyx joining Zoom without saying whether the deal has closed.
The trial length is missing, and the page cites both 40+ and 50+ connectors.
Right for
Small teams that want a per-seat price and the option to host it
Wrong for
Buyers who need a vendor that stays independent
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-user monthly Business plan on annual billing; Enterprise quoted; trial on Business
Knowledge-graph AI platform with agents and an on-premises menu entry
Ranked #5 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePricing on requestEurope
The home page names a Core AI Engine with agentic AI, knowledge graphs, guardrails and a privacy layer, plus Squirro Neo and taxonomy tools under the Synaptica Graphite name.
It promises live users eight weeks after a signed agreement. On-Premises Enterprise AI appears as a menu item without a description, so hosting choices need confirming. Offices are listed in the USA, UK, Germany and Singapore.
What stands out
Knowledge graphs
GraphRAG
Agent catalog
Where it costs you
No prices or plans appear, and pricing depends on a contact-form conversation.
Only Microsoft Teams is named as a platform; connectors are mentioned without names.
Right for
Regulated teams wanting graph-based retrieval and a vendor-run agent catalog
Wrong for
Teams wanting a quick intranet search with a visible price
SwitzerlandQuoted per organisation by scale and deployment; hands-on demos on request
Retrieval platform with agents, deployable as SaaS, VPC or on-premises
Ranked #6 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Self-hostablePublished pricingElsewhere
Annual plans start with one SaaS deployment, then one VPC deployment on any cloud, then one on-premises deployment, each at a higher starting figure.
The platform parses and ingests files, retrieves with hybrid search and re-ranking, detects hallucinations, and runs agents with skills, tools and memory. Interfaces are REST, MCP and A2A, and customers can bring their own model or use the vendor one.
What stands out
SaaS, VPC, on-prem
Annual plans
Hallucination checks
Where it costs you
Each annual plan starts at a high stated price, with SaaS the cheapest of the three.
The Small, Medium and Large tiers are shown without prices.
Right for
Engineering teams building retrieval into their own product or assistant
Wrong for
Small teams wanting a ready search box for staff
Not stated by the vendorPublished annual starting prices by deployment type; 30-day trial
Enterprise search with RAG and a no-code assistant builder
Ranked #7 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Functions on the home page cover search and assistive AI for employees, agents and assistants, content enrichment, and pre-built solutions. The connector page is linked rather than shown, so source coverage cannot be read from the site we checked.
Ownership sits in a wider group: Argonos says it is a ChapsVision brand, though it does not state how Sinequa itself is owned. Headquarters are not given.
What stands out
200+ connectors
Assistant builder
MCP server
Where it costs you
Only a demo booking is offered, and the price page does not load.
Deployment is described as a choice without naming cloud, VPC or on-premises.
Right for
Large organisations wanting search plus configurable assistants from one vendor
Wrong for
Buyers who need published pricing and a named hosting model
Not stated by the vendorQuoted per organisation; buyers book a demo to get a figure
Work-assistant search over 275+ apps, priced only after a demo
Ranked #8 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
The home page claims 3+ billion searches across documents, 275+ connected data sources and 40+ language models for model flexibility. Named integrations include Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Confluence, SharePoint, GitHub and Salesforce.
Governance covers permission-aware answers and a Protect offering, plus observability of queries and actions. Solutions are pitched to financial services, healthcare, retail, technology, industrials and consulting, so the product is aimed at large deployments.
What stands out
275+ connectors
Permission-scoped
Model choice
Where it costs you
The pricing page lists no plans or limits, only a request for a demo.
No hosting, self-run or on-premises option is stated on the pages read.
Right for
Larger companies wanting search, an assistant and agents over many apps
Wrong for
Small teams that want to trial and compare prices first
United StatesQuoted per organisation; plans and limits are not listed
Per-seat workplace search assistant now joining HubSpot
Ranked #9 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Published pricingElsewhere
Team and Business plans differ by bots and model choice: Business adds custom bots, a choice between top LLMs, org-wide integrations and priority support. Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, an API add-on and custom retention.
Named connectors include Slack, Google Drive, Notion, Salesforce, GitHub, Jira, Confluence, SharePoint, Teams and Zendesk. The home page claims SOC 2 Type 2 and zero-data retention support, but states no hosting model.
What stands out
Per-seat plans
Custom bots
Browser extension
Where it costs you
HubSpot announced an acquisition in April 2025 and says nothing about the product roadmap.
Single sign-on and SCIM are held back for the quoted Enterprise tier.
Right for
Small teams wanting cited answers at a published per-seat price
Wrong for
Buyers who need assurance the product stays standalone
Not stated by the vendorPublished per-seat monthly plans, cheaper on yearly billing; Enterprise quoted; 14-day trial
Verified knowledge base with permission-aware AI answers and citations
Ranked #10 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestNorth America
The pricing page says the investment is tailored to organisation scale, knowledge complexity and AI maturity, and sends visitors to sales. Offerings named include Knowledge Agents, Enterprise AI search, an Agentic Knowledge Base and Team Hubs, with integrations for Slack, SharePoint and Teams.
Governance claims cover audit trails, guardrails, built-in DLP and SOC 2 Type 2. The company is Guru Technologies, Inc., with a Philadelphia address.
What stands out
Knowledge agents
Cited answers
Role scoping
Where it costs you
Value depends on staff maintaining content inside Guru, not just connecting sources.
No plans, trial or hosting model are stated on the pages read.
Right for
Teams that want a curated knowledge base with AI search on top
Wrong for
Buyers whose main need is searching existing systems unchanged
United StatesQuoted per organisation through sales; reduced-cost programme for nonprofits
Employee AI assistant where search is one function among agents
Ranked #11 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
The home page names connectors for Slack, OneDrive, Google Drive, SharePoint, Confluence and Outlook, plus 50+ others. It describes an AI Assistant, a Reasoning Engine and Tool Studio for building agents.
The footer still reads Moveworks, Inc., while a linked announcement states that ServiceNow officially acquired the company. No hosting model is stated, though FedRAMP authorization is mentioned for regulated sectors, and headquarters are not given.
What stands out
Assistant first
ServiceNow-owned
Agent marketplace
Where it costs you
Search is one function inside a wider assistant and agent product.
Ownership by a large platform vendor ties it to that ecosystem, and its price page returned a 404.
Right for
Companies already on ServiceNow wanting one assistant for search and actions
Wrong for
Buyers who only need a stand-alone search index
Not stated by the vendorQuoted per organisation; the page offers a demo and a solution finder
Customer-facing search for locations, sites and help centres, not workplace search
Ranked #12 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Yext Search reports query insights that show unanswered customer questions, which is useful for a help centre but not for staff retrieval. The Search page offers three experiences and a single call to action, Get a Demo, with no free plan or trial shown.
The home page mentions connecting internal agents to the Knowledge Graph by MCP and API. Country and owner are not stated on the pages read.
What stands out
Customer-facing
Knowledge Graph
Location finder
Where it costs you
Results depend on hosting content on Yext Pages, which changes how a website is run.
No CMS or CRM connectors are named, and the integration FAQ shows no answer.
Right for
Brands with many locations or help articles to expose to customers
Wrong for
Teams wanting to search internal files across work apps
Not stated by the vendorQuoted per organisation through sales; demo only, no price page
Finance document analysis with matrix tools and market data connectors
Ranked #13 of 13 in Best Enterprise Search Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestElsewhere
Home page products are Max for analyst work, Matrix for managing many tasks and Context for documents and financial data.
The security page lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001:2022, ISO/IEC 42001:2023, GDPR and CCPA, with regional processing across the US and EU and a dedicated tenant on request. The default deployment model is missing, and the page gives no legal entity.
What stands out
Finance data
Dedicated tenant
Matrix workflows
Where it costs you
The pricing page showed a load error and no prices, only demo and sign-in buttons.
Its connectors centre on market data, so it covers general company knowledge only through storage connectors.
Right for
Investment and advisory teams analysing filings and deal documents at scale
Wrong for
General employee search over wikis, tickets and chat tools
Not stated by the vendorQuoted per organisation; the page shows request-a-demo buttons only
Enterprise search software connects to a company's internal apps and files, builds a permission-aware index, and returns ranked results or cited answers to employees from one search box. What separates these products is rarely a feature. Work through the steps below.
01
Work out how much a sales call is worth to you
8 vendors on this page sell by quote, while 5 publish a pricing model you can read today: SearchBlox, Mindbreeze, Onyx, Vectara, Dashworks.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
The 13 companies behind this list are established in 3 countries, by region Elsewhere 9, North America 3, Europe 1. Disclosure obligations attach to the company, so they travel with the vendor even when the servers stay at home.
Enterprise search software: what the quote counts
Vendors in this market bill on three different units, and the unit decides who pays more as you grow. Dashworks and Onyx publish per-seat monthly prices, so a large staff costs more. Mindbreeze bills by indexed documents and says user count does not matter, which favours a big workforce on a modest index.
SearchBlox sells annual packages per server or per managed tier, and Vectara starts annual plans by deployment type. Glean, Atolio, Sinequa and Squirro show no prices at all. Count your seats and your documents, then ask every vendor to quote both numbers, so the units can be compared on one sheet.
Count employees and indexed documents before asking for any price
Ask which unit raises the bill: seats, documents or searches
Get the quote in writing for the year after the pilot
Connectors and permissions decide whether search works
A search tool is only as good as the sources it reaches and the access rules it respects. Atolio names Slack, Confluence, Jira, Salesforce, SharePoint and ServiceNow, and Dashworks names Zendesk and Intercom, while Mindbreeze and Sinequa claim 500 and 200 connectors without naming one.
Several vendors say results follow source permissions: Onyx enforces them at query time and Glean says users see only what they may. Test with your own tools, including the odd internal systems, and check that a restricted file stays hidden from a colleague who lacks access. Ask whether permission changes in the source reach the index quickly.
Check each of your real sources against the named connector list
Test a restricted document with a user who lacks access
Ask how fast permission changes reach the index
Hosting: SaaS, your cloud account or on-premises
Where the index lives matters more here than in most software, because it holds a copy of company knowledge. Mindbreeze lists three routes to run it. Atolio deploys inside your AWS, Azure or GCP account, Onyx can run air-gapped, and Vectara offers SaaS, VPC and on-premises at rising starting prices.
Glean, Guru and Dashworks state no hosting model on the pages we read, so ask before a pilot. Running the index yourself shifts work onto your team: updates, scaling and connector upkeep. Budget hours, not just licences, for that choice.
Ask where the index and its copies are stored
Estimate staff hours for updates if you host it yourself
Confirm the vendor can run in your region and cloud
Search product or assistant platform: check the scope
Some products here are search-first, while others treat search as one feature. Moveworks lists enterprise search beside agents and a marketplace, Guru works as a curated knowledge base, and Yext Search is meant for customer-facing locations and help centres. Hebbia centres on financial filings and market data.
Ownership also moves: Dashworks is joining HubSpot, Moveworks is described as acquired by ServiceNow, and Onyx announces joining Zoom. A pilot should measure whether staff find answers faster, not whether the demo looks good, and you should ask what happens to your contract and data if the vendor changes hands.
Decide whether you want search alone or an assistant with actions
Ask what happens to your contract if the vendor is acquired
Run a pilot with ten real questions from your staff
What goes wrong most often when buying enterprise search software
Buying on connector counts, then finding that the two systems your staff use most are not among the named sources.
Comparing a per-seat price with a per-document price without converting both to a yearly total for your own numbers.
Treating a customer-facing site search such as Yext Search as a way to search internal files.
Assuming a pilot will survive an acquisition, when Dashworks, Moveworks and Onyx each show a change of owner on their own pages.
07
Frequently asked questions
7 answers
What is the best enterprise search software in 2026?
First of 13 on this page is SearchBlox. SearchBlox lists annual prices for a single self-managed server, a three-server cluster and three fully managed tiers that add a chatbot and then agents, so a first-year budget can be built without a call.
The managed tiers stop at 10,000 documents or URLs and 100,000 searches a month, which is small for a large intranet. Its 300+ connectors are counted but not named on the home page.
Which enterprise search tools publish their pricing?
Published pricing exists for 5 products on this page:
SearchBlox: Published annual prices per deployment, self-managed or fully managed; support tiers by contact count.
Mindbreeze: Published starting price per year by indexed documents, user count ignored; larger tiers quoted.
Onyx: Published per-user monthly Business plan on annual billing; Enterprise quoted; trial on Business.
Vectara: Published annual starting prices by deployment type; 30-day trial.
Dashworks: Published per-seat monthly plans, cheaper on yearly billing; Enterprise quoted; 14-day trial.
Everything else on the list is priced on request.
Is there a free enterprise search tool?
Not among the products reviewed here: no vendor on this list has a free tier worth using.
Where are these enterprise search software vendors established?
In 3 countries across 3 regions: Elsewhere 9, North America 3, Europe 1.
SearchBlox: United States.
Mindbreeze: Not stated by the vendor.
Atolio: Not stated by the vendor.
Onyx: Not stated by the vendor.
Squirro: Switzerland.
Vectara: Not stated by the vendor.
Sinequa: Not stated by the vendor.
Glean: United States.
Dashworks: Not stated by the vendor.
Guru: United States.
Moveworks: Not stated by the vendor.
Yext: Not stated by the vendor.
Hebbia: Not stated by the vendor.
Which enterprise search tools can you host yourself?
The next in line are Mindbreeze, aimed at Buyers with many users but a bounded document count, wanting a deployment choice, and Atolio, aimed at Security-minded teams that want the index to stay inside their own cloud.
Who should not buy SearchBlox?
Organisations indexing far more than 10,000 documents on a managed tier. The fully managed tiers carry stated caps of 10,000 documents or URLs and 100,000 searches per month..
If a enterprise search software product of yours deserves a place among these 13, say what it is and who it serves. Inclusion rests with us alone. See software advice for the rules.
