Danswer

What is Danswer?

Danswer, now operating as Onyx, is an open-source enterprise search and AI assistant that connects to internal knowledge sources to provide context-aware answers. It is designed for teams requiring self-hosted deployments where documents, embeddings, and model traffic remain within their own infrastructure. The platform supports continuous synchronization across more than 50 enterprise connectors while enforcing source permissions at query time.

What are the features of Danswer?

• Parallel enterprise search

  Queries indexed sources such as GitHub, Drive, Slack, and Confluence simultaneously rather than sequentially, returning permission-filtered results.
• Self-hosted deployment

  Runs on AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, bare metal, or fully air-gapped environments with no external third parties.
• Permission enforcement

  Applies the access controls from each connected source at query time so users only see documents they are authorized to view.
• Model routing

  Allows swapping LLM providers in one click, routing different teams to different models, or running open-weight models on local GPUs.
• Continuous synchronization

  Maintains up-to-date indexes across more than 50 supported enterprise connectors.
• Agent integration

  Exposes a search tool via MCP (onyx-mcp) that agents can call to retrieve permission-aware passages from specified sources.

What are the use cases of Danswer?

• Internal cost anomaly investigation

  Searching parallel sources like GitHub PRs, Slack channels, and cloud cost exports to identify specific infrastructure issues, such as an untorn-down cluster causing billing spikes.
• Launch readiness tracking

  Querying product and engineering workspaces to surface remaining open items, target dates, and required reviews for upcoming releases.

How to use Danswer?

1. Ask a question in the workspace

   Type a query into the Onyx chat interface to search across synchronized internal sources.
2. Review the generated answer

   Read the response alongside cited passages drawn from tools like Confluence, Slack, or Drive.
3. Ask a follow-up

   Continue the conversation in the same thread to refine the context or request additional details.

Danswer Pricing Information:

• Free trial

  A "Try for Free" option is available on the website; specific feature limits or duration are not stated.
• Enterprise demo

  A "Book a Demo" option is provided for teams evaluating the platform; pricing details are not disclosed in the source.