Kelu vs Mendable
Mendable was one of the earliest AI-search-over-docs platforms and was acquired by Firecrawl in 2024, with the product's future direction now more focused on the underlying crawler/scraping SDK. Teams looking for a purpose-built, actively-developed AI knowledge assistant use this page to compare Kelu on retrieval, surfaces, and pricing.
Feature comparison
Comparison drawn from Mendable's public documentation and Firecrawl's announcements.
Where Kelu focuses differently
An actively-developed docs assistant
Post-acquisition, Firecrawl's product priority has shifted toward the crawler/scraping SDK, and Mendable-branded roadmap updates have slowed. Kelu is an independent, actively-developed product with a public roadmap and weekly releases.
More surfaces on one plan
Widget, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, MCP, browser extension, Support Ticket AI (in your helpdesk), form deflector, and the agents SDK — all included on Pro. One knowledge base, every surface.
Hybrid retrieval + abstention
Vector search is combined with full-text (BM25) and reranking, an LLM rewrites the query before search, and the assistant refuses to answer when retrieval confidence is low. That's the accuracy story customer-facing widgets need.
Broader source coverage
25 connectors including GitHub, Notion, Confluence, OneDrive, Google Drive, Salesforce, Linear, Discourse, Stack Overflow, YouTube, and every major helpdesk — a materially larger footprint than Mendable's.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mendable still being developed?
Mendable was acquired by Firecrawl in 2024. Firecrawl's public focus is now on their crawler / scraping SDK; Mendable users looking for an actively-developed alternative typically evaluate Kelu, Kapa.ai, and Inkeep.
Can I migrate from Mendable?
Yes. Reconnect the same source URLs (websites, GitHub repos, Notion, files), swap the widget embed for Kelu's, and you're running. Most teams are live in under an hour.
How does retrieval quality compare?
Kelu layers full-text (BM25) and reciprocal rank fusion on top of vector search, rewrites the query with an LLM before search, and reranks with a cross-encoder — designed to catch exact-match queries (error codes, SKUs) that vector-only search misses. An abstention gate refuses low-confidence questions.
How does pricing compare?
Kelu publishes pricing on the site: Free (100 questions/mo), Pro $99/mo (1,000 questions, 5 KBs), Enterprise custom. Mendable's pricing is contact-only post-acquisition.
Do you support the same integrations Mendable had?
Yes, and more. Every Mendable source (websites, GitHub, Notion, files) is a first-class connector in Kelu, plus Confluence, Google Drive, OneDrive, Zendesk, Jira, Linear, Salesforce, Slack, Discord, Discourse, Stack Overflow, and YouTube.
See for yourself
Connect your docs and get your first AI-powered answer in under 5 minutes. No credit card required.