Fleece AI Brain vs Guru: knowledge your AI can actually read
Guru keeps a human team's wiki fresh with verified cards in its cloud. Fleece AI Brain keeps knowledge in open files on your machines and serves it to your AI apps and agents over MCP. Here is the comparison.
Fleece AI Brain is the strongest Guru alternative for teams whose knowledge now has to feed AI, not just people. Guru curates verified cards in its cloud, surfaced to humans through a browser extension. The Brain stores everything as open Markdown on your machines, serves it to Claude, Cursor and your agents over MCP with citations, and maps what each agent costs — with no lock-in.
A card wiki for people. A brain for your AI.
Guru is a well-made cloud knowledge-management platform: teams write verified cards, assign owners and review cycles to keep them trustworthy, and surface them where people work through a browser extension and search. Its whole design centers on one job — keeping a human team's wiki fresh and reliable. The knowledge lives as proprietary cards in Guru's cloud, curated by and for people.
Fleece AI Brain answers a different, newer need: the knowledge your company holds now has to feed AI as much as humans. So the Brain stores everything as plain Markdown with a SQLite index on your own machines, pulls in what your tools already know through 20 built-in connectors — Slack, Gmail, Drive, Confluence, Zendesk and more, syncing provider straight to device — and exposes the whole graph to any Model Context Protocol app: Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Zed and your own agents, answers citing their sources.
The contrast is human-facing versus AI-facing, and closed versus open. Where Guru gives people a curated card to read, the Brain gives every AI app durable memory it can query, keeps that memory in files you own rather than a vendor cloud, and — on the Teams plan — maps your AI organization and tracks what each agent costs, a dimension a card wiki was never meant to cover.
Fleece AI Brain vs Guru at a glance
The short version: Guru is a curated card wiki for people in the cloud; the Brain is open, local memory your AI apps and agents read over MCP.
| Criterion | Fleece AI Brain | Guru |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Local-first knowledge graph for AI apps and agents | Cloud card wiki curated for human teams |
| Primary audience | Your AI apps and agents (and people) | People reading verified cards |
| Where knowledge lives | Your disk — plain .md + SQLite | Proprietary cards in Guru's cloud |
| AI app access | Any MCP app (Claude, Cursor, agents), with citations | AI assists card creation and search in Guru |
| Knowledge upkeep | Connectors auto-sync from source; Janitor AI merges (Pro) | Human verification workflows and card owners |
| AI org & cost visibility | Org map + per-agent cost tracking (Teams) | No equivalent |
| Data privacy | Connectors sync provider → your device; we can't read it | Cards stored and served from Guru's cloud |
| Works offline | Fully — it's files on your machine | Cloud service by design |
| Lock-in | None — open files, leave anytime | Cards in a proprietary cloud format |
| Best for | Private, durable AI memory across your whole stack | A human-curated, verified card wiki |
Choose Fleece AI Brain if…
- +Your knowledge now has to feed AI — you want Claude, Cursor and your own agents answering from it over MCP, not just people reading cards.
- +You want that knowledge in open Markdown on your machines, not proprietary cards in a vendor cloud.
- +You need upkeep without a full manual verification program: connectors sync from the source and Janitor AI auto-merges duplicates on Pro.
- +Your knowledge is scattered across Slack, Gmail, Drive, Confluence and Zendesk, and you want it unified in one graph via built-in connectors.
- +You need to see your AI organization and what each agent costs — a view a card wiki does not provide.
Where Guru still makes sense
- ·Your primary need is a human-curated card wiki with formal verification workflows and card owners keeping answers trustworthy for people.
- ·Your team relies on surfacing verified cards inside the browser as they work, and that reading experience is the point.
- ·Even then, you can make the Brain the AI-facing memory layer underneath — its connectors can sync the same source knowledge for your agents to read.
Run it as the AI layer under your wiki
You don't have to retire Guru to give your AI real memory. Start the 14-day trial (no card), connect the same sources through one OAuth sign-in each, and plug Claude or Cursor in over MCP. The Brain becomes the open, local memory your agents read — while your team keeps whatever card wiki it likes. If you later consolidate, your knowledge is already plain Markdown on your disk.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fleece AI Brain a good alternative to Guru?+
Yes — it is the strongest alternative for teams whose knowledge now has to feed AI, not just people. Guru curates verified cards in its cloud for humans; the Brain keeps open Markdown on your machines and serves it to any MCP app like Claude and Cursor, with per-agent cost tracking and no lock-in.
How is the Brain different from a card wiki?+
Guru is human-facing and curated: people write and verify cards in the cloud. The Brain is AI-facing and open: knowledge lives as plain Markdown on your machines and is served to Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Zed and your agents over MCP, with answers that cite their sources.
Who keeps the knowledge accurate?+
Instead of relying only on manual verification workflows and card owners, the Brain keeps knowledge current by syncing directly from the source through its connectors, and on the Pro plan its Janitor AI automatically merges duplicates so the graph stays clean.
Where does my knowledge live, and is it private?+
On your own machines. The vault is plain Markdown and a SQLite index, and each connector syncs content directly from the provider to your device — nothing transits Fleece's servers and we can't read your data. Optional cloud sync is end-to-end encrypted.
Which AI apps can use the Brain?+
Any app that speaks the Model Context Protocol — Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Zed and your own agents — connected with one copy-paste, answers citing their sources. A card wiki is designed for people to read; the Brain is designed for your AI to query.
Can I keep Guru and use the Brain too?+
Yes. Many teams keep a human-facing card wiki and run the Brain as the AI-facing memory layer underneath. Its connectors can sync the same source knowledge, so your agents read an open, local graph while people keep the wiki they like.
Does the Brain track what our AI costs?+
Yes. The Teams plan maps your whole AI organization and tracks cost per agent, so you can see which agents run, what they touch and what they spend — a dimension a human-facing card wiki was never built to cover.
How does pricing work?+
Fleece AI Brain is flat and public: Solo at €12/month with up to 3 connected tools, Pro at €24/month with unlimited connectors, auto-sync and Janitor AI, Teams at €49 per user/month with the org map, cost tracking, SSO and audit. You can try any of it for 14 days, no card required.
Give your AI knowledge it can actually read
Connect your sources, plug in Claude or Cursor, and give every AI app one private brain — open files on your machines. 14-day trial, no card required.