# Dust gives every department a builder for its own AI agents, billed by the seat. What are the best Dust alternatives? And which ones work before anyone builds an agent? Source: https://maito.app/blog/dust-alternatives Date: 2026-10-21 Author: Dmitry Dubovetzky Dust alternatives: Maito, Glean, ChatGPT Business, Claude Tag, and Viktor compared on building agents, seats and credits, company knowledge, code, security, and price, for teams that want AI working across the company without designing a catalog of agents first. ## What are the best Dust alternatives? **The best Dust alternatives are Maito, Glean, ChatGPT Business, Claude Tag, and Viktor. Maito is the closest fit for teams that want one AI employee the whole company asks for work, with nothing to build first and no charge per person.** This guide is for a company of about ten to fifty people where a few people use AI every day and many ask now and then. Choose Maito if requests come from every team, don't fit neatly into one agent's job, and often end in a change to the product. Choose Dust if each department wants its own specialized agents, someone has the time to build and look after them, and a SOC 2 report is required before purchase. | | Best pick | | -------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- | | One AI employee for the whole company, no seats | Maito | | Search across hundreds of apps with permissions enforced | Glean | | A company already paying for ChatGPT seats | ChatGPT Business | | A Slack team that has standardized on Claude | Claude Tag | | Microsoft Teams, with model costs inside one bill | Viktor | | Many governed agents, each built for one department | Dust | ## Why do teams look for a Dust alternative? **Teams look for Dust AI alternatives when nobody has time to design and maintain a catalog of agents, when per-seat credits make occasional users expensive, or when support questions should end in a code fix rather than a GitHub issue.** In Dust, someone sets up each agent's knowledge, tools, model, and skills before the team can use it. That's the point of the product, and it works best when a department has a clear, repeated job and an owner for the agent. [Dust](https://dust.tt/). As of October 2026, every Dust member who messages an agent needs a seat: Pro at $30 a month with 8,000 credits, or Max at $150 with 40,000. Credits belong to each person and reset monthly, and Business caps a workspace at three data connectors. [Dust pricing](https://dust.tt/home/pricing), [Dust seat management](https://docs.dust.tt/docs/user-documentation/admins/usage-seats-and-credits/seat-management). The full breakdown is in [Dust pricing](/blog/dust-pricing). For code, Dust agents can run code in a temporary workspace, create GitHub issues, and review pull requests, but fixing a bug in your repository is left to an engineer. [Dust GitHub tools](https://docs.dust.tt/docs/user-documentation/agents/tools/github). Reviewers like it. As of October 2026, Dust rates 4.6 out of 5 on G2 from about 80 reviews. Reviewers most often praise how easy it is to build an assistant and how many tools it connects to; the most common complaints are an interface that could be smoother and credit use that climbs fast with heavy work. [Dust on G2](https://www.g2.com/products/dust-dust/reviews). ## What does Dust do well? **Dust is strongest when a company wants many specialized agents, each grounded in its own slice of company data and governed centrally, with a choice of more than 20 models.** Teams build agents for ticket triage, account research, analytics, and CRM updates, and share them through Pods, workspaces that hold conversations, files, and tasks together. Agents run on schedules and triggers, and its Computer tool runs code and edits spreadsheets, slides, and documents. [Dust Pods](https://docs.dust.tt/docs/user-documentation/pods/overview), [Dust Computer](https://docs.dust.tt/docs/user-documentation/agents/tools/computer). On security, Dust holds SOC 2 Type II, includes SSO and a choice of US or EU hosting on Business, and doesn't train models on customer data. [Dust security](https://dust.tt/home/security), [Dust pricing](https://dust.tt/home/pricing). A company with a platform team and clear department workflows gets a lot from that package. ## How do the Dust alternatives compare at a glance? **Maito is the Dust alternative with nothing to build, no seat for each person, and customer bugs carried through to a tested pull request in the same thread.** | | Maito | Glean | ChatGPT Business | Claude Tag | Viktor | | -------------------- | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | -------------------------- | | Build agents first | No: One AI employee, ready to ask | Partly: Assistant ready; agents built | Partly: Assistant ready; agents built | No: One Claude in Slack | No: One agent, ready to ask | | Charged per person | No, $149 per workspace | Sales quote | $25 per user | No, Team plan plus usage | No, workspace credits | | Where you use it | Slack, email, AI assistants | Glean app and Slack | ChatGPT, Slack, Teams | Slack | Slack, Microsoft Teams | | Company knowledge | Learns from shared work | Search across 275+ apps | Connected apps; per-user memory | Channel and workspace memory | Personal and team memory | | Code changes | Sandbox, checks, QA, pull request | Draft pull requests from Slack | Codex tasks from Slack | Commits and pull requests | Branches and pull requests | | Recurring work | Loops on a schedule or webhook | Agents triggered by events | Scheduled workspace agents | Routines in channels | Scheduled jobs | | Security | Encrypted Vault, audit log | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA | SOC 2 Type 2, SAML SSO | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type 1 | | Price for ten people | $149 plus provider usage | Not published | $250 | Team plan plus usage | From $50 | Sources: Maito: [FAQ](/faq), [pricing](/pricing). Glean: [agents](https://www.glean.com/product/agents), [Slack](https://docs.glean.com/user-guide/embedded-integrations/slack/), [security](https://www.glean.com/security), [pricing](https://www.glean.com/pricing). ChatGPT Business: [Slack](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/third-party/slack), [admin guide](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/enterprise/chatgpt-slack-and-teams), [pricing](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing), [security](https://openai.com/security-and-privacy/). Claude Tag: [setup](https://claude.com/docs/claude-tag/admins/setup-overview), [memory](https://claude.com/docs/claude-tag/users/memory), [certifications](https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/10015870-what-certifications-has-anthropic-obtained), [pricing](https://claude.com/pricing). Viktor: [product](https://viktor.com/product), [memory](https://viktor.com/academy/skills-and-memory), [security](https://viktor.com/security), [pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing). ## Is Maito a good Dust alternative? **Yes. Maito is a good Dust alternative for companies that want one AI employee everyone can ask, without building an agent for each job, at $149 per workspace per month with unlimited people, plus your AI provider's usage.** Anyone in a Slack channel where Maito is invited can ask it for work, and colleagues join the same thread to add context or pick it up later. It also works by email at the workspace's own address and from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, Grok, and Muse. [AI employee](/product/ai-employee), [Team collaboration](/product/team-collaboration). Instead of an agent per department, Maito learns company facts from shared work and saves a job that went well as a skill anyone can reuse. Recurring work becomes a Loop on a schedule or a webhook. For product changes, each coding task gets its own sandbox, your checks, QA, and a pull request your engineers review. [Company knowledge](/product/company-knowledge), [Skills](/product/skills). _Illustrative conversation:_ > **Leah:** @Maito finance wants the annual customers renewing in November who still have no billing contact. We don't have an agent for this. > > **Maito:** 14 annual accounts renew in November, and 5 have no billing contact in Stripe or HubSpot. The list with each account owner is attached. > The renewal notice also skips accounts with no contact, so those 5 would hear nothing. PR #812 sends it to the account owner instead and adds a test. Checks pass. > > **Leah:** Great. Can you give the five owners a heads-up too? > > **Maito:** Drafts for all five are below. Approve them and I'll send. **Best for:** companies where requests come from every team and often end in a product fix. **Falls short of Dust:** no SOC 2 report, no free seat, and no builder for a governed catalog of department agents. ## Is Glean a good Dust alternative? **Glean is a good Dust alternative when the main job is finding answers across a large company's apps, with every result limited to what the person asking is allowed to see.** Glean connects to more than 275 apps and builds agents on top of that search, which can be triggered by events and handed tasks by other agents. In Slack, people search with `/glean`, get answers in channels, open the assistant in the sidebar, and turn a thread into a draft pull request with Code Writer. [Glean agents](https://www.glean.com/product/agents), [Glean in Slack](https://docs.glean.com/user-guide/embedded-integrations/slack/). Glean lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, and HIPAA. It doesn't publish prices; buying starts with a demo. [Glean security](https://www.glean.com/security), [Glean pricing](https://www.glean.com/pricing). **Best for:** large companies whose biggest problem is information spread across hundreds of tools. **Falls short of Dust:** no published price or self-serve start, and a bigger rollout than a small team needs. ## Is ChatGPT Business a good Dust alternative? **ChatGPT Business is a good Dust alternative for a company that already pays for ChatGPT seats and mostly wants summaries, drafts, and plans, in ChatGPT and in Slack.** People mention @ChatGPT in Slack or Microsoft Teams for a summary, a reply, or a plan, and repository work goes to Codex as a separate task that reports back to the thread. The Slack assistant doesn't keep memory between requests. [ChatGPT in Slack](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/third-party/slack), [ChatGPT in Slack and Teams for admins](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/enterprise/chatgpt-slack-and-teams). As of October 2026, Business costs $25 per user a month, or $20 billed yearly, for two or more users, and includes Codex. OpenAI holds a SOC 2 Type 2 report for ChatGPT Business. [ChatGPT pricing](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing), [OpenAI security](https://openai.com/security-and-privacy/). **Best for:** teams where most people already live in ChatGPT. **Falls short of Dust:** OpenAI models only, and the Slack assistant starts every request without memory. ## Is Claude Tag a good Dust alternative? **Claude Tag is a good Dust alternative for a company on Claude Team or Enterprise that wants one shared Claude in its Slack channels instead of a set of separately built agents.** Claude Tag keeps notes for each channel, adds what it learns in public channels to a workspace memory, and runs routines that post updates and watch channels. It commits code and opens pull requests as the Claude GitHub App. [Claude Tag memory](https://claude.com/docs/claude-tag/users/memory), [Claude Tag setup](https://claude.com/docs/claude-tag/admins/setup-overview). As of October 2026, Claude Team starts at $25 per seat a month, or $20 yearly. People in a channel can ask Claude without a seat of their own, and Claude Tag's channel work is billed to the organization by usage. Anthropic holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. [Claude pricing](https://claude.com/pricing), [What is Claude Tag](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15594475-what-is-claude-tag), [Anthropic certifications](https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/10015870-what-certifications-has-anthropic-obtained). **Best for:** Slack companies that have already picked Claude. **Falls short of Dust:** Slack only, Claude models only, and still in beta. ## Is Viktor a good Dust alternative? **Viktor is a good Dust alternative for teams that want a ready AI agent in Slack or Microsoft Teams with no seat fee, and model costs inside one workspace bill.** Viktor does reports, campaigns, CRM updates, dashboards, and code fixes with pull requests, and remembers personal, team, and workflow knowledge. It connects to more than 3,200 tools. [Viktor](https://viktor.com/product), [Viktor skills and memory](https://viktor.com/academy/skills-and-memory). As of October 2026, Viktor's Team plan is $100 a month for 40,000 shared credits, with smaller and larger tiers starting at $50, and new workspaces get up to $100 in free credits. Viktor is SOC 2 Type 1. [Viktor pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing), [Viktor security](https://viktor.com/security). **Best for:** companies on Microsoft Teams that want one predictable bill. **Falls short of Dust:** SOC 2 Type 1 rather than Type II, and no choice between 20+ models for each job. ## What do the Dust alternatives cost a ten-person team? **As of October 2026, ten Dust Pro seats cost $300 a month on monthly billing. Maito costs $149 for the workspace plus provider usage, ChatGPT Business costs $250 in seats, Claude Tag costs a Claude Team plan plus channel usage, Viktor starts at $50, and Glean quotes through sales.** | | Ten people a month | What makes the bill grow | | ---------------- | -------------------------- | -------------------------------- | | Dust | $300, or $240 yearly | More seats and Max upgrades | | Maito | $149 | Model usage on your own provider | | ChatGPT Business | $250, or $200 yearly | More seats | | Claude Tag | Team plan, from $25 a seat | Usage in channels | | Viktor | From $50, Team plan $100 | Larger credit tiers and top-ups | | Glean | Not published | Quoted by sales | The credits pay for different things. Dust's and Viktor's include model usage, Claude Tag bills channel usage on top of seats, and Maito's model usage goes to the AI provider you connect. [Dust pricing](https://dust.tt/home/pricing), [ChatGPT pricing](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing), [Claude pricing](https://claude.com/pricing), [Viktor pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing), [Maito pricing](/pricing). ## How can you test the Dust alternatives on one job? **Pick a request that crosses two teams and has no agent built for it, such as a list of accounts with missing billing contacts that also turns up a bug. Give it to two products on the shortlist and see which one finishes it without anyone setting up an agent first.** Have someone from finance or support ask, not the person who would build agents. Good work is a correct list with sources, a fix your engineers would merge, and drafts that wait for approval before going out. ## So should you choose Maito or Dust? **Choose Maito if you want one AI employee the whole company works with, for business work and product changes, at one workspace price. Choose Dust if each department should build and govern its own agents, with SOC 2 Type II and EU hosting.** **Choose Maito if:** - Requests come from every team and rarely fit one agent's job - Nobody has time to build and maintain a catalog of agents - Customer bugs should end in a tested pull request - One price, however many people ask **Choose Dust if:** - Each department wants its own specialized agents - A platform team will own and govern them - Your security review needs SOC 2 Type II or EU hosting Count the requests from last month that didn't match any agent you'd build. If that's most of them, a ready AI employee fits better than a builder. ## Dust alternatives: frequently asked questions ### What is the cheapest Dust AI alternative? Viktor, from $50 a month for the whole workspace as of October 2026. Maito costs $149 per workspace plus your AI provider's usage, and ChatGPT Business starts at $25 per seat. [Viktor pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing), [Maito pricing](/pricing). ### Which Dust alternatives don't charge per user? Maito, Viktor, and Claude Tag. Maito is $149 per workspace with unlimited people, Viktor bills shared workspace credits, and Claude Tag bills channel work as usage, though the company still needs a Claude Team plan. ChatGPT Business needs a seat for each user, and Glean doesn't publish its pricing. [Maito pricing](/pricing), [Viktor pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing), [Claude Tag spend limits](https://claude.com/docs/claude-tag/admins/set-spend-limit). ### Is Glean better than Dust? Glean is better for searching across a large company's apps with permissions enforced, and Dust is better for building many specialized agents with published, self-serve prices. Glean sells through a demo. [Glean agents](https://www.glean.com/product/agents), [Dust pricing](https://dust.tt/home/pricing). ### Can I try a Dust alternative for free? Viktor gives new workspaces up to $100 in free credits. Maito and Claude Tag have no free plan. [Viktor pricing](https://viktor.com/pricing), [Maito pricing](/pricing). ### Which Dust alternative can fix bugs in our product? Maito, Claude Tag, and Viktor open pull requests in your repository, ChatGPT Business sends coding to Codex, and Glean drafts pull requests from Slack threads. Maito also reproduces the bug, records a video, runs your checks and QA, and drafts the customer reply. [Maito FAQ](/faq), [Glean in Slack](https://docs.glean.com/user-guide/embedded-integrations/slack/). ### Which Dust alternatives have a SOC 2 report? As of October 2026: Glean and Anthropic's Claude Tag with SOC 2 Type II, OpenAI's ChatGPT Business with SOC 2 Type 2, and Viktor with Type 1. Maito doesn't have a SOC 2 report; it keeps credentials in an encrypted Vault and gives admins an exportable log of agent actions. [Glean security](https://www.glean.com/security), [Anthropic certifications](https://privacy.claude.com/en/articles/10015870-what-certifications-has-anthropic-obtained), [OpenAI security](https://openai.com/security-and-privacy/), [Viktor security](https://viktor.com/security).