# Dust vs SurfSense

Dust records 547,217 monthly visits with +1.8% month-over-month growth and Contact for Pricing pricing. SurfSense records 61,868 monthly visits with -17.4% growth and Freemium, Free Trial, Contact for Pricing pricing.

| Metric | [Dust](https://openaitools.app/tool/dust) | [SurfSense](https://openaitools.app/tool/surfsense) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://dust.tt | https://www.surfsense.com |
| Categories | AI Assistant, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI Workflow, AI Knowledge Management | AI Report Writing, AI Cover Generator, AI Pitch Deck Generator, AI Email Generator |
| Pricing Model | Contact for Pricing | Freemium, Free Trial, Contact for Pricing |
| Monthly Visits | 547,217 | 61,868 |
| MoM Growth Rate | +1.8% | -17.4% |
| Primary Market | France | United States |
| Direct Visits | 456,919 | 20,999 |
| Review Score | 4.4 | 4.5 |
| Saved Count | 5 | 3 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Dust

Dust positions itself as 'multiplayer AI' for human-agent collaboration. Rather than giving each employee a private chatbot, it lets teams build agents that have shared access to company knowledge, connected tools, conversations and notifications, so work can move back and forth between people and AI. Agents can be reused across departments, and human review stays part of the loop where it matters.

The platform's differentiator is context. According to Dust, most AI tools can retrieve a single Slack message or CRM record, whereas its agents pull context together across Slack, CRM, documents and other company systems to answer with the full picture and then act on it. Over 70 connectors cover messaging, calendars, CRM, file storage, project management, data and finance tools, and agents can reach MCP servers through the same gateway.

Governance is a first-class feature. Dust offers a dual-layer permission model that separates what agents can access from who can use them, SCIM-synced groups, admin-gated overrides, audit logs and analytics for monitoring adoption, usage, cost and ROI. It is SOC 2 Type II certified, offers US or EU data residency and supports single-tenant deployment. Teams can build agents with 20+ frontier and open-source models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and others, choosing the right model per workflow. The company says more than 3,000 organizations and 300,000+ agents run on the platform.

**Pricing & Plans:** Contact for pricing. Dust offers a free trial after signup, but its plans are oriented toward teams and enterprises with usage-based credits, volume pricing and dedicated support; you need to talk to sales for exact figures.

- **Agents with company context:** Connect 70+ tools including Slack, Notion, Google Drive, GitHub, Salesforce and Zendesk so agents answer with real company knowledge instead of generic guesses.
- **70+ connectors and MCP support:** Reach messaging, CRM, docs, project management, data, finance and MCP servers through one platform, so agents can act across systems rather than just chat.
- **Model flexibility:** Build agents with 20+ frontier and open-source models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Mistral, and pick the best model for each task.
- **AI-native governance:** A dual-layer permission model, SCIM-synced groups, admin-gated overrides, audit logs and usage analytics keep company data locked down while teams move fast.
- **Multiplayer collaboration:** People and agents share context, tools and notifications, so cross-functional workflows run with reusable skills and human review built in.

**Strengths:** Deep context gathering across 70+ enterprise connectors; Strong enterprise governance with permissions, audit logs and SOC 2 Type II; Model-agnostic: choose among 20+ frontier and open-source models; Shared, reusable agents that scale across departments

**Limitations:** Pricing is sales-led, so costs are hard to estimate before a demo; Setting up connectors and permissions takes real admin work; Best value comes with broad rollout, which is a heavier commitment for small teams

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/dust.md)

## SurfSense

SurfSense is built around a simple idea: a research assistant should not require an account, a cloud upload, or a subscription you cannot audit. You install a normal desktop app for Windows, macOS or Linux — no Docker and no terminal required — and on first launch you pick a model. A small local model downloads once and runs on your CPU, meaning you can literally disconnect the network and keep asking questions about the sources you have already indexed. Alternatively you can paste a key for OpenAI, Anthropic or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and that key stays on the machine that uses it.

On top of that index sits a toolkit of outputs. Any set of sources can be turned into a slide deck, a written report, a briefing, a podcast-style audio conversation, a mind map, flashcards, a quiz, a spreadsheet of extracted tables, or a standalone web page. Because generation happens locally, there is no per-minute fee and nothing is uploaded, which matters for lawyers, accountants, consultants and engineers working with case files, ledgers or client documents they are not permitted to send to a vendor.

The free core is genuinely free and open source, with no account and no usage cap. Paid licences exist only to unlock SurfSense's own server-side scraper plugins (among them Google Search, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, Amazon, Walmart, Indeed and a general web crawler) and priority support. Plugins you add yourself — third-party plugins and MCP servers — need no licence. Enterprise agreements mirror the licensing and plugin endpoints inside a customer's own network so that nothing egresses at all.

**Pricing & Plans:** The application and all its updates are free forever — no account, no trial clock, no usage cap. A 14-day plugin licence is included with the free download (email only, no card). An Individual licence costs $60 for the first year and $120 a year thereafter and unlocks every SurfSense plugin plus priority support and one feature-build request per year. An Enterprise deployment is custom-priced and invoiced annually. Self-building from source is also free.

- **Air-gapped, self-hosted operation:** Install a normal desktop app on Windows, macOS or Linux and run it with no account. With a local model you can pull the network cable and keep querying your indexed sources, since nothing is sent to a vendor.
- **Bring your own model, or run a local one:** Choose a bundled local Qwen or Gemma model at first launch, or paste a key for OpenAI, Anthropic or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. The model is a setting rather than a fixed vendor choice.
- **Twelve artifact formats:** Turn one set of sources into slide decks, reports, briefing notes, podcasts, mind maps, flashcards, quizzes, Markdown, Word, PDF, HTML and spreadsheet outputs — generated and stored locally.
- **Scraper plugins for live sources:** Optional plugins pull research from Google Search, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, Amazon, Walmart, Indeed and the open web, and anyone can register their own MCP server.
- **Open source and enterprise-deployable:** The source is public and auditable, and an Enterprise deployment mirrors licensing and plugin endpoints inside your own network with model and network policy you control and a local audit log of outbound calls.

**Strengths:** Runs fully offline with a local model, so sensitive sources never leave your machine; No account, no sign-up and no usage cap on the core application; Choice of model — bundled local models or your own OpenAI, Anthropic or compatible key; Open source and auditable, with a wide range of output formats from a single source set

**Limitations:** The first local model download and setup step takes time and some technical patience; The most useful scraper plugins sit behind a paid licence, which runs $60 the first year then $120 a year; Collaboration and cloud sync are intentionally absent, so it suits individual work better than shared team workspaces

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/surfsense.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Dust and SurfSense compare in monthly traffic?

Dust has 547,217 monthly visits, while SurfSense has 61,868. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Dust has a month-over-month growth rate of +1.8%; SurfSense has -17.4%.

### How does pricing compare?

Dust: Contact for Pricing. Contact for pricing. Dust offers a free trial after signup, but its plans are oriented toward teams and enterprises with usage-based credits, volume pricing and dedicated support; you need to talk to sales for exact figures. SurfSense: Freemium, Free Trial, Contact for Pricing. The application and all its updates are free forever — no account, no trial clock, no usage cap. A 14-day plugin licence is included with the free download (email only, no card). An Individual licence costs $60 for the first year and $120 a year thereafter and unlocks every SurfSense plugin plus priority support and one feature-build request per year. An Enterprise deployment is custom-priced and invoiced annually. Self-building from source is also free.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [Notion](https://openaitools.app/tool/t) | 173,441,670 | +0.1% | Freemium | Provides a unified connected workspace for team documents and databases, but lacks Dust's advanced multi-source enterprise knowledge indexing. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/t.md) |
| 2 | [Salesforce Agentforce (formerly Einstein)](https://openaitools.app/tool/salesforce-einstein) | 111,910,743 | +2.2% | Freemium | Integrates deeply with CRM ecosystems to automate enterprise workflows, but is tightly bound to the Salesforce software suite. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/salesforce-einstein.md) |
| 3 | [Glean](https://openaitools.app/tool/glean) | 3,301,875 | +0.1% | Contact for Pricing | Offers robust enterprise-wide permission-aware search and knowledge management, but with less focus on custom multi-model agent workflows. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/glean.md) |
| 4 | [Abacus.AI](https://openaitools.app/tool/abacus-ai) | 3,278,636 | -1.7% | Contact for Pricing | Combines multi-model chat assistants and automated machine learning optimization, but with a heavier focus on data science pipelines. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/abacus-ai.md) |
| 5 | [ChatPDF](https://openaitools.app/tool/chatpdf) | 1,044,477 | -3.7% | Freemium | Chat with any PDF, video, or website and get cited answers in seconds | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/chatpdf.md) |
| 6 | [Taskade](https://openaitools.app/tool/taskade) | 539,714 | -9.4% | Freemium | Turn one prompt into live business apps, AI agents and automated workflows | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/taskade.md) |
| 7 | [AnythingLLM](https://openaitools.app/tool/anythingllm) | 512,269 | +12.9% | Freemium | Own your intelligence: a private AI assistant that runs entirely on your machine | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/anythingllm.md) |
| 8 | [Gumloop](https://openaitools.app/tool/gumloop) | 379,557 | -21.1% | Freemium, Paid, Contact for Pricing | Excels at visual no-code web scraping and data automation pipelines, but lacks Dust's dedicated internal knowledge base architecture. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/gumloop.md) |
| 9 | [iWeaver](https://openaitools.app/tool/iweaver) | 336,462 | +32.9% | Freemium | AI agents that turn your own documents into summaries, mind maps and reports | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/iweaver.md) |
| 10 | [Tines](https://openaitools.app/tool/tines) | 273,260 | +24.4% | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | Focuses on secure enterprise workflow automation and security orchestration, but requires more manual setup for custom AI agents. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/tines.md) |

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Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/dust-vs-surfsense

More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)