Sidenote vs Dust
Both cite the documents they answer from. The difference is scale and setup: Dust is a platform your company uses to build custom AI assistants and agents on top of your connected apps, while Sidenote is a per-person reader that rides along on whatever page or PDF you already have open — no admin rollout, no assistant to configure, and a free tier to start on your own.
A reader that rides along in your browser, answering from the document you already have open.
A platform for building custom AI assistants and agents on your connected company data.
Should you use Sidenote or Dust?
Choose Sidenote if…
You want to read and question the specific document in front of you — a page, a private wiki, a PDF — with citations that scroll to the exact passage, starting free on your own with no assistant to build or IT project to run.
Choose Dust if…
You are a team that wants to build and configure custom AI assistants and agents wired into your connected apps — Notion, Slack, GitHub, Drive and more — deployed company-wide by an admin.
One is a platform for building assistants across your company's connected data; the other reads the one document in front of you and shows you exactly where each answer came from.
Sidenote vs Dust: feature by feature.
| Capability | Sidenote | Dust |
|---|---|---|
| Reads the page or document you already have open | Yes | Partial |
| Works on private Confluence, Notion & SharePoint pages | Yes | Partial |
| Works on web articles & live web pages | Yes | No |
| Citations scroll & highlight the exact passage | Yes | No |
| Server-side citation check drops unsupported claims | Yes | No |
| One-click glossary of jargon & acronyms | Yes | No |
| Per-document Store / Discard retention control | Yes | No |
| No-login free tier | Yes | No |
| Build & configure custom assistants or agents | No | Yes |
| Connects to enterprise systems at scale | Partial | Yes |
| Developer API & workflow automation | No | Yes |
Several rows go to Dust, and we are not pretending otherwise — see Where Dust is the better tool below. Dust's assistants do link back to the documents they drew an answer from, but that is a link to the source, not a scroll-and-highlight of the exact passage on the live page, so that row is marked no rather than partial. The cross-document row is powered by Sidenote Collections.
Build an assistant on your company data, or read the document in front of you.
Dust is a platform for building AI assistants and agents. An admin connects your company's apps — Notion, Slack, GitHub, Google Drive, Confluence and others — and a team configures assistants that answer and act on that connected data, deployed to everyone at the company.
Sidenote is not an assistant platform. It sits in the browser side panel and answers from the single document you already have open, then scrolls the live page to the exact passage each claim came from and highlights it. There is nothing to configure and a free tier to start on your own.
Ask "what did we decide about the Q3 roadmap?" A Dust assistant, configured to search your connected Notion and Slack, returns an answer with links back to the documents it drew from. Sidenote reads the exact Notion page you already have open, answers, and highlights the sentence that proves it — no assistant to configure, right where you are reading.
Where Dust is the better tool.
Dust is a serious, well-built platform for company AI assistants, and there are things it does that a per-person browser reader simply does not. If these are what you need, Dust is the stronger choice.
Custom assistants & agents on company data
Dust lets a team build and configure its own AI assistants and multi-step agents, wired into connected apps like Notion, Slack, GitHub and Drive. Sidenote reads the documents you personally open — it has no assistant builder or agent framework.
Company-wide deployment
An admin connects your organisation's apps once, and every teammate gets assistants grounded in that shared, permission-aware data. Sidenote is a per-person reader you install yourself, with nothing to roll out to a team.
Developer API & workflow automation
A developer API and automation hooks let teams wire Dust's assistants into their own tools and workflows. Sidenote stays a focused reader rather than a platform to build on.
Sidenote vs Dust — common questions
Read anything. With citations.
Add Sidenote to Chrome and ask the document in front of you a question. No rollout, no configuration, no new tab — just the answer, and the passage that proves it.
7-day Pro trial · No card required · Free tier forever