Compare · Amazon Q Business
Amazon Q Business alternative: cited, permission-aware enterprise search you can still buy
AWS has confirmed it in its own documentation: "Amazon Q Business will no longer be open to new customers starting on July 31, 2026. If you would like to use the service, please sign up prior to July 30." If you are evaluating Amazon Q Business right now, that is the whole decision, because the window has already closed. Since July 31, 2026 a new team simply cannot buy it, so the only live question is which open product you evaluate instead.
One search · cited answers · permission-aware
Ask your company anything
InSearch searches across Drive, Slack, Notion, Confluence, Gmail, Jira and Salesforce in one query and returns a written answer with citations, only ever from sources you're allowed to see.
Searching connected apps
WorkingAnswer
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Interactive demo · sample data, no app connected
Every answer cited to its source documents · permission-aware · never trains on your data
For existing customers the news is calmer. AWS says Q Business "remains fully supported" with continued bug fixes and security updates, but adds the sentence that matters for a multi-year plan: "new feature requests will no longer be considered." The recommended path forward is Amazon Quick, and that migration is a real project rather than a rename, with index quotas, rebuilt Q Apps and a genuine gap in per-user access control to work through.
InSearch is the alternative for teams who wanted what Q Business promised and would rather not start on a closing product. One query searches Drive, Slack, Notion, Confluence, Gmail, Jira and Salesforce, and you get back a written answer with inline citations to the exact source documents. Item-level permissions are inherited from each source and enforced at query time, per person, so a company-wide rollout does not quietly widen who can read what. There is no AWS account to wire up, no index units to provision by the hour, and no per-account infrastructure fee.
Amazon Q Business closing to new customers reset a lot of roadmaps, covered in Amazon Q Business closing to new customers. The successor comparison is in Amazon Q Business versus Amazon Quick Suite, and teams leaving Kendra should see our Amazon Kendra alternative.
Amazon Q Business closed to new customers on July 31, 2026, and AWS now points buyers to Amazon Quick. InSearch is a cross-app enterprise search that is open, priced per seat with no infrastructure fee, and enforces item-level permissions at query time.
Side by side
Amazon Q Business vs InSearch, honestly
A fair look at what each does well. Both are capable tools. Here is where they differ.
| What matters | InSearch | Amazon Q Business |
|---|---|---|
| Open to new customers | Yes, available today on transparent per-seat pricing | No. AWS: no longer open to new customers starting July 31, 2026 |
| Ongoing feature development | Actively developed, cited answers are the core roadmap | Supported with bug fixes and security updates; AWS states new feature requests will no longer be considered |
| Permissions | Item-level permissions inherited from each source and enforced at query time, per person | Index-level ACLs and a User Store; on migration to Quick without IAM Identity Center, per-user and per-group distinctions are lost by default |
| Setup | Connect your apps with OAuth, no cloud account or index provisioning | AWS account, IAM Identity Center, application environment plus a provisioned index |
| Cost model | One transparent per-seat price, no hourly index units, no account fee | Lite $3 and Pro $20 per user per month, plus index capacity billed hourly (starter $0.140/hr, enterprise $0.264/hr per unit) |
| Cited answers | Written answer with inline citations to the exact source docs | Answers with source attribution, response length capped by tier |
| Best suited for | Teams that want cross-app cited search they can start on now | Existing AWS-native customers already deployed before the cutoff |
Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each product for the latest.
Why teams pick InSearch
One cited, permission-aware search across every app
You can actually buy it
AWS closed Q Business to new customers on July 31, 2026. InSearch is open, priced per seat, and you can sign up without a procurement cycle.
Permissions that survive a rollout
Every answer is scoped to what the person asking can already open, enforced at query time from each source's own item-level controls. Nothing widens by accident.
No infrastructure to size
No index units billed by the hour, no per-account monthly fee, no capacity planning in documents and megabytes. One per-seat price covers the search.
Good questions
Amazon Q Business vs InSearch, answered
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Find any answer at work with InSearch
One search across all your company apps, a clear cited answer, scoped to exactly what each person can see, and never trained on your data.
One search across every app · cited answers · permission-aware · never trains on your data