Dust vs Kindo (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Dust if

• Fits if your company wants agents that answer from its own docs and chats
• Works for organizations that need their data kept in the US or the EU

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you're staying free, as the Free seat is 500 credits once and never refills
• Not for you if you need more than 3 data sources, 5 MCP servers or 5 spaces without an Enterprise deal
• Skip it if you need audit logs, SCIM or custom data retention, which sit on the custom-priced Enterprise plan
• Pricey if heavy users need Max, at $120 a seat a month billed yearly or $150 monthly
• Watch out: credits don't roll over, prices exclude VAT, and there's no phone or desktop app

Pick Kindo if

• Fits if you are an IT or security team that has to control how staff use AI agents
• Works for regulated companies that need on-prem or air-gapped deployment

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want self-serve signup, as no plan or trial is described
• Skip it if you need a published price, because none is
• Not for you if you are a small shop, since it is built for enterprise buyers
• Watch out: the SOC 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA claims are the vendor's own

Dust

• The Free seat is a one-time allowance of 500 credits, not a monthly quota; once it is used, free users are prompted to request an upgrade.
• The self-serve Business plan covers teams of up to 100 and is limited to 3 data source connectors, 5 remote MCP servers and 5 spaces.
• SCIM provisioning, audit logs, custom data retention and single-tenant deployment require Enterprise.
• Monthly credits reset each billing period without rolling over, and listed prices exclude VAT.

Kindo

• No prices are published; the pricing address redirects to the platform page and the site points to a demo and a free assessment.
• The product is built for enterprise buyers, and no self-serve plan or free trial is described on the pages read.
• The vendor says it holds SOC 2 Type II and supports ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR and NIST CSF; these are its own claims.

Dust

Agents with company context

Agents draw on connected company data from sources such as Slack, Notion, Google Drive, GitHub, Salesforce and Zendesk to answer questions and take action.

Model choice per agent

All plans include 20+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and DeepSeek. The model is chosen per agent, and none is locked to a higher plan.

Schedules and triggers

Multi-agent workflows can run on a schedule or in response to events. Dust also lists Zapier, Make, n8n and Power Automate as supported automation platforms.

Spaces and permissions

Spaces segment data by team, and a two-layer permission model separates what agents can access from who can use them. The Business plan includes 5 spaces.

Frames

Frames turn agent output into interactive dashboards, reports and memos that a team can explore and work on together.

Slack and Chrome extension

Agents can be mentioned in any Slack channel or messaged directly, and a Chrome extension opens them in a sidebar on any web page.

Kindo

Agent oversight

Shows every AI agent, its owner and its state in one place, and lets teams stop a run and meter what each agent uses.

Policy and DLP

Enforces data boundaries at runtime to prevent leaks when agents touch data, models and tools.

Deep Hat and Deep Hat Sift

Deep Hat is a cybersecurity model for red teams and security operations; Sift filters alerts, tickets and logs so only events needing analysis reach an agent.

Agent Builder and Action Chat

Tools for building agents for critical work, with the vendor offering 24x7 central support.

Shadow AI discovery

A free assessment connects a few data sources and builds a first AI registry that includes unsanctioned AI accounts and tools.

Flexible deployment

Runs on premises, in your own cloud, in Kindo's cloud, or air-gapped.

Dust

• Free$0

  A Business-plan seat with 500 credits for its lifetime and no monthly refill, meant for occasional users or people trying Dust.

• Pro$24

  per seat / month, billed yearly; $30 billed monthly

  8,000 credits per seat each month on the Business plan, which covers teams of up to 100, with SSO available on request from 5 seats.

• Max$120

  per seat / month, billed yearly; $150 billed monthly

  40,000 credits per seat each month, for people who regularly run complex automations, deep research or tool-heavy workflows.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Unlimited connectors and MCP servers, workspace-pooled credits, SCIM, audit logs, custom data retention, single-tenant deployment and an SLA.

Kindo

Pricing could not be confirmed. See kindo.ai.

Dust

• Annual discount

  Save 20% with yearly billing

  Dust's pricing page shows a 20% saving on yearly billing: Pro is $24 per seat a month instead of $30, and Max is $120 instead of $150.

Kindo

No public discounts listed.