What is Swirl used for?

Swirl is a federated AI search and RAG that queries your existing apps live, ranks results, and returns cited answers without copying data into a vector database. It is a good fit for company-wide search across many SaaS tools and RAG without duplicating sensitive data.

Is Swirl open source?

Yes. Swirl is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at swirlai/swirl-search and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Swirl is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $24,000 per year.

Can I self-host Swirl?

Yes. Swirl can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Swirl an alternative to?

Swirl is an open-source alternative to Glean, Coveo, Sinequa and Amazon Kendra. Other open-source alternatives to Glean include Onyx, Xyne and Agno Scout.

Is Swirl actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Swirl was on 26 September 2026, and the latest release is v4.5.0.7, published on 22 June 2026. The project has 3k stars on GitHub.

Swirl: open-source alternative to Glean, Coveo, Sinequa

About Swirl

SWIRL is an AI search and retrieval-augmented generation tool that works without moving your data. Instead of copying content into a vector database, it queries your sources live with each user's own permissions, re-ranks the results, and can generate an answer with citations using the language model of your choice. The Community edition in this repository is released under the Apache-2.0 license.

Connectors reach many business applications, and the project's tagline refers to more than 100 apps. The approach avoids building ETL pipelines, standing up a vector store, or maintaining a second copy of data that needs security and audit controls, since permissions are enforced at the source. The stack is Python and Django, and a Docker quick start gets an instance running in about two minutes.

A separate SWIRL Enterprise edition adds a three-pass reranker, canonical answers, an MCP server for agents, and managed support. The Community edition is free to self-host. It suits IT and data teams wanting enterprise search across many systems while keeping data in place.

Key features

Federated search across connected apps
Live queries with source-level permissions
No vector database or ETL needed
Cited answers from your choice of language model
Django-based with Docker quick start
Enterprise tier adds reranking and MCP server

Good fit for

→Company-wide search across many SaaS tools
→RAG without duplicating sensitive data

Built with: Python; Django
Tags: search; rag; federated-search; ai-search; django; python; enterprise-search; self-hosted

Swirl: questions and answers

What is Swirl used for?: Swirl is a federated AI search and RAG that queries your existing apps live, ranks results, and returns cited answers without copying data into a vector database. It is a good fit for company-wide search across many SaaS tools and RAG without duplicating sensitive data.
Is Swirl open source?: Yes. Swirl is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at swirlai/swirl-search and is written mainly in Python.
Is Swirl free?: Yes. Swirl is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $24,000 per year.
Can I self-host Swirl?: Yes. Swirl can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Swirl an alternative to?: Swirl is an open-source alternative to Glean, Coveo, Sinequa and Amazon Kendra. Other open-source alternatives to Glean include Onyx, Xyne and Agno Scout.
Is Swirl actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Swirl was on 26 September 2026, and the latest release is v4.5.0.7, published on 22 June 2026. The project has 3k stars on GitHub.