Dust gives every employee agents grounded in the company's knowledge, with 70+ connectors and EU or US data residency, priced per seat. Orkeste focuses on agents that act in business tools, with a person approving what goes out, priced per account.
Side by side
What it is: Orkeste: No-code platform for AI agents that work in your tools, with human approval. Dust: Platform to build agents on company knowledge, tools and 20+ models.
Who builds the agents: Orkeste: Ops, sales or support leads, in plain language, from 29 role templates or a blank briefing. Dust: Teams build custom agents with their own skills, knowledge and tools.
Multiple agents: Orkeste: Swarms of agents run in sequence, in parallel, on conditions, or led by a manager agent that plans, delegates and writes the final answer (from the Starter plan). Dust: Multi-agent workflows on schedules and events.
Human approval: Orkeste: Validations queue: for each agent, you choose which actions wait for a person. Dust: Not described as an approval queue on its home and pricing pages.
How agents start: Orkeste: Manual runs, schedules, events (a signed webhook or a Stripe event at once; a new Gmail or Outlook email or a new Zendesk or Jira ticket, checked every 5 minutes), or the API (Pro plan and above). Dust: Chat, schedules described in plain language, and webhooks (GitHub, Jira, Linear, Zendesk or custom).
Integrations: Orkeste: 26 native connectors (Gmail, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Jira, Slack...), an outgoing webhook, and remote MCP servers in agentic mode (5 on Pro, unlimited on Business). Dust: 70+ connectors (Slack, Notion, Google Drive, GitHub, Salesforce, Zendesk...) and remote MCP servers.
Hosting: Orkeste: Managed cloud hosted in the EU; not self-hostable. An EU-only setting keeps every model call on EU-hosted models. Dust: EU or US data residency; SOC 2 Type II.
Pricing: Orkeste: Monthly credits: Free (500), Starter €9.99 (5,000), Pro €39.99 (25,000), Business on quote. Dust: Per seat, with credits per seat and a free tier.
Where Orkeste is different
Built to act, with a check
Orkeste agents draft Gmail replies, update HubSpot deals or answer Zendesk tickets, and the actions you choose wait in Validations until someone approves the draft.
Priced per account, not per seat
A plan's monthly credits cover the whole account. Adding the colleagues who approve or follow the agents does not add seats.
AI Act transparency built in
The public chat and widget tell people they are talking to an AI, agent emails carry an AI-generated header, and the agent and approval registers export as CSV.
The longer answer
What is Dust?
Dust is a platform for building AI agents grounded in company knowledge. Teams create agents with their own skills, knowledge and tools, connect 70+ sources such as Slack, Notion, Google Drive, GitHub, Salesforce and Zendesk, and choose among 20+ models. Agents can run from chat, on a schedule or on a webhook, and data can be kept in the EU or the US.
Where Dust is stronger
Knowledge and adoption. Employees ask questions in chat and agents answer from many synced sources, with a SOC 2 Type II certification that procurement teams ask for. For a company-wide assistant, it is the more mature choice.
Where Orkeste is different
Orkeste starts from the action. An agent drafts the reply, updates the deal or posts the summary, and the sensitive actions wait in Validations. Event triggers start agents on a new email, ticket, webhook or Stripe event; swarms let a manager agent split the work; and a test tab runs saved cases before any change goes live.
Honest bottom line
Choose Dust to put knowledge agents in front of every employee. Choose Orkeste to put agents to work in your business tools, with approval before they act and a price that does not grow with each seat.
When to choose which
Choose Orkeste if
Agents must send emails, update records or reply to tickets, with approval first
Many people approve or follow agents without using them daily
You want swarms led by a manager agent, with tests and versions per agent
You need the AI Act transparency features out of the box
Choose Dust if
The main need is employees asking questions of company knowledge in chat
You need more than 26 connectors, or GitHub and engineering tools
You need a SOC 2 Type II report today
You want one chat assistant for every employee
Frequently asked questions
Is Orkeste an alternative to Dust?
For agents that act in business tools with an approval step, yes. For a company-wide assistant that answers from your knowledge in chat, Dust is the more complete product.
Do both offer EU hosting?
Dust offers EU or US data residency. Orkeste is hosted in the EU, and its EU sovereign setting also keeps every model call on EU-hosted models, without falling back to a provider outside the EU.
How does pricing compare?
Orkeste plans include a monthly credit allowance: Free with 500 credits, Starter at €9.99 with 5,000, Pro at €39.99 with 25,000 and Business on quote. A run uses from 2 credits with Claude Haiku 5.5 to 235 with Claude Fable 5.1. Dust is priced per seat, with credits per seat and a free tier; check dust.tt for current figures.
Can Orkeste answer from our documents?
Yes, from the PDFs, pages and notes attached to an agent and from synced OneDrive, SharePoint and Confluence content. There is no company-wide chat across every source, which is where Dust is stronger.