How Sonela compares
Sonela is an enterprise knowledge AI platform, and the assistant is the part people meet. Four comparisons people ask for: a tool that turns questions into database queries, a database chatbot you embed for your customers, a website chatbot, and a general AI assistant. Each shows what Sonela does differently.
Sonela, side by side
Read more
Four things people weigh us against, and none is the same comparison. Vanna AI is a text-to-SQL framework you assemble and run, AskYourDatabase a hosted chatbot over your database that you embed for your customers, and Chatbase an agent platform grounded in the documents you give it. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are general assistants, a paid seat for each person, in the vendor’s own app.
Sonela answers from your live records the way Vanna does, arrives as one line of code the way Chatbase does, and sits inside your own software rather than in someone else’s app. We keep the read-only guarantee and the separation between one customer’s rows and another’s; you don’t wire them up. Some rows favour Vanna, AskYourDatabase, Chatbase or the general assistants, and we print them that way: everything in their columns comes from their own pages, named under each table.
Underneath all four comparisons, Sonela is a knowledge AI platform powered by retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). It finds what answers a question in your own records, documents and systems, then answers from that alone.
Sonela and Vanna AI
| What is being compared | Sonela | Vanna AI |
|---|---|---|
| How your staff reach it | Yes. Three channels we run — in your app, a page we host, iOS and Android — carrying the same assistant, branded per workspace from your dashboard. | Embeddable web component — their README shows React, Vue or plain HTML. |
| What it is | Yes. One assistant we run. You configure it rather than build it. | A framework you assemble and run, with a hosted service alongside. MIT-licensed. |
| Run entirely on cloud | Yes. Latest cloud technology, 0 maintenance by you. | No. Self-hosted with local storage. |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle. | Yes. Ten in their README, including Oracle, Snowflake, BigQuery and ClickHouse. |
| AI models you can bring | Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including one you run yourself, plus Gemini and Anthropic — or no key at all, on a plan where we supply the model. | Seven in their README, including Anthropic, Ollama, Bedrock and Mistral. |
| Reading your website | Yes. Name your public site and it is read in — same host, up to two hundred pages, robots.txt honoured — and re-read weekly. It answers from it like an uploaded manual. | Not described in their README. Knowledge is what you supply in code. Read 7 Sep 2026. |
| Calling your own APIs | Yes. Configured per workspace from the dashboard, and called when a question needs them. | Custom tools, written in code: extend their Tool class and register it, per their README. Read 7 Sep 2026. |
| Who guarantees a query only reads | Yes. We do, in the product: an allowlist grammar, engine guards, no commit anywhere. | A framework question: a SQL runner per database, policy left to whoever deploys it. |
| Keeping one customer's rows out of another's | Yes. Every table reference rewritten into a tenant-filtered subquery, bound server-side. | Row-level security — their README describes filtering per user permissions. |
| What reaches the AI model | Question, prompt, the rows a query returned, recent turns, an attached screenshot — the personal details Sonela recognises in the question, the turns and the rows as placeholders. | The same shape. Sign-in and connection details never sent. |
| What you pay | Flat monthly or yearly, with an allowance of question credits each month. | $50/mo for 20 questions a day, $500/mo for 300. Rate-limited past the cap. 29 Aug 2026. |
The website and API rows were checked against the vanna-ai/vanna README on 7 September 2026. Everything else was checked on 29 August 2026 against vanna.ai/pricing, vanna.ai/data-security (their version 2.0, last updated October 2025) and the vanna-ai/vanna repository on GitHub. Prices and product facts on someone else's site change without telling us; if a row here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.
Sonela and AskYourDatabase
| What is being compared | Sonela | AskYourDatabase |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping one customer’s rows out of another’s | Yes. Every table reference rewritten into a tenant-filtered subquery, bound on our server; the model never sees whose rows they are. | Row-level policies you write: a filtered SELECT for each table, on values your server passes when it opens each person’s session — or a separate database for each customer. |
| What one answer can draw on | Yes. Your live records, your documents, your website and your own APIs, together in one answer. | Your database. Notes and examples you write help it write the SQL. |
| Where people reach it | Three channels: in your app, a page we host, and iOS and Android. | A chat window your server opens for each person through their API, a WhatsApp line, dashboards you embed, and a desktop app sold by the seat. |
| Live data, and where the query runs | Yes. Connect directly with nothing to install, or, for the strictest reviews, run the Sonela Gateway: one service on one server inside your own network. There the read-only query runs on your side, against your live data — checked first against a grammar that cannot express a write — and the gateway dials out to us, so there is no inbound port and nothing of yours exposed. The security brief states both in full. | Their hosted chatbot reaches your database from their servers, and their setup guide asks you to let their server through your firewall. Running it inside your own network is an Enterprise quote. |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL and Oracle. | Yes. More than ours: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, BigQuery, Snowflake, ClickHouse and Vertica. |
| Who guarantees a query only reads | Yes. We do, in the product: an allowlist grammar, engine guards, no commit anywhere. | The database account you give it. Their security page advises a read-only one and says generated SQL and prompt instructions are not security boundaries. |
| What is kept of a conversation | Yes. No transcript on our servers, unless a visitor hands the conversation to your people. A reported answer goes to you; an answer that read none of your records may be remembered for up to seven days against a hash of the question, never the question’s words; a signed-in hosted page keeps its last conversation sealed on that person’s own device. | Conversations can be saved in their history, query results possibly with them, and you can read every customer’s messages in their console. |
| What reaches the AI model | Question, prompt, the rows a query returned, recent turns, an attached screenshot — the personal details Sonela recognises in the question, the turns and the rows as placeholders. | The question, earlier messages, your schema and its descriptions, your training examples, the SQL it wrote and selected results. Their security page describes no masking of personal details. |
| Your documents and your website | Yes. Upload your procedures; point it at your public site and it is read and re-read weekly. | Notes you write to explain your schema, and examples pairing a question with its SQL. Answers come from the database. |
| AI models you can bring | Yes. Run on our key, or bring your own from the providers we support. | Their hosted plans run Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Haiku 4.5 or GPT-4.1, which they supply. Your own model endpoint is an Enterprise option, agreed with their team. |
| Independent certifications | Not yet — we are going through the audits now, and until they are signed we say so rather than imply otherwise. Meanwhile you get the threat model itself. | None claimed. Their security page says it asserts no completed audit, and sends you to their Enterprise team for any report. |
| What you pay | Flat monthly or yearly per workspace, with an allowance of question credits each month — not per person. | $149/mo for 1,000 questions and up to six chatbots; $329/mo for 1,500, unlimited chatbots and their branding removed; $0.15 for each question past that. 30 Oct 2026. |
Checked on 30 October 2026 against askyourdatabase.com/pricing, askyourdatabase.com/docs/security (their review of 26 September 2026), askyourdatabase.com/docs/access-control, askyourdatabase.com/docs/connect and their guides to embedding a chatbot and training it. Prices and product facts on someone else’s site change without telling us; if a row here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.
Sonela and Chatbase
| What is being compared | Sonela | Chatbase |
|---|---|---|
| Live data, and where the query runs | Yes. Connect directly with nothing to install, or, for the strictest reviews, run the Sonela Gateway: one service on one server inside your own network. There the read-only query runs on your side, against your live data — checked first against a grammar that cannot express a write — and the gateway dials out to us, so there is no inbound port and nothing of yours exposed. The security brief states both in full. | Grounded in material you upload or point it at, held and served from their cloud — a support agent rather than a query against the systems you run. |
| Keeping one customer’s rows out of another’s | Yes. Every table reference is rewritten into a tenant-filtered subquery before the query runs. The rewrite is the system’s, not the model’s — there is no instruction to forget and nothing a question can talk it out of. | A different shape: their agents answer from the material you give them rather than querying your database, so there is no query to rewrite. |
| What it is | One line of code in the software your staff already use, answering from the records inside it — and saying so plainly when it cannot. | An agent platform for customer experience and support, in their own words. Different job, not a smaller one. |
| Who it answers | Your staff, and your site’s visitors on a key you mark public. | Your customers, across the channels they already use. |
| Your documents and your website | Yes. Upload your procedures; point it at your public site and it is read and re-read weekly. | Yes. Files, your website, text, question-and-answer pairs, Notion, and tickets from Salesforce or Zendesk. |
| Calling your own APIs | Yes. Your endpoints become tools the assistant may call, each with its own sign-in held on our side. | Yes. Actions and integrations, with worked examples for orders, invoices and products. |
| Where people reach it | Three channels: in your app, a page we host, and iOS and Android. | Yes. More than we offer: website, WhatsApp, Meta apps, Slack, email and voice. |
| AI models you can bring | Yes. Run on our key, or bring your own from the providers we support. | Yes. A published choice of models from several vendors. |
| Independent certifications | Not yet — we are going through the audits now, and until they are signed we say so rather than imply otherwise. Meanwhile you get the threat model itself, which no certificate gives you. | Yes. Chatbase publishes independent audit and compliance certifications on their site. |
| What you pay | Flat monthly or yearly, with an allowance of question credits each month. | Free for 50 message credits a month; $40/mo for 700, $150/mo for 4,000, $500/mo for 15,000. Extra credits $40 per 1,000; extra agents $25/mo each. 15 Sep 2026. |
Checked on 15 September 2026 against chatbase.co, chatbase.co/pricing and their documentation for data sources. Prices and product facts on someone else’s site change without telling us; if a row here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.
Sonela and ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini
| What is being compared | Sonela | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini |
|---|---|---|
| Where your staff ask it | Yes. Inside the software they already work in, from one script tag in your app — or on a page we host, or on their phone. | In each vendor’s own app on the web, desktop and phone, and inside tools such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. We found no documented way to place it inside your own application; that is a build on their developer platform. |
| Your live database | Yes. Read-only queries against your live records, run over a direct connection or through the gateway inside your network, and checked first against a grammar that cannot express a write. | No built-in link on these plans. A custom connector that someone builds and an admin adds can reach one, and each vendor’s help pages leave its safety to whoever builds it. Google’s own AlloyDB preview says it cannot fully rule out unintended write queries. |
| Keeping one customer’s rows out of another’s | Yes. Every table reference rewritten into a tenant-filtered subquery, bound on our server; the model never sees whose rows they are. | Whatever the connector you build enforces. Google’s AlloyDB preview shows every user the same data rather than filtering per person. |
| Who can use it | Yes. Anyone you put it in front of: your staff, your own customers inside your product, or your website’s visitors on a key you mark public. | People with a paid seat in your workspace: ChatGPT Business is for teams of 2 to 200, Claude Team for 2 to 150. |
| What you pay | Flat monthly or yearly per workspace, with an allowance of question credits each month — not per person. | Per person. ChatGPT Business and Claude Team: $20 a seat a month billed yearly or $25 monthly, with premium seats from $100. Gemini Enterprise Business from $21 a seat a month. |
| Your documents | Yes. Upload your manuals, name your website, or sync files from Google Drive or SharePoint. | Yes. More sources than ours: Google Drive, SharePoint, Slack, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and others, depending on the vendor. |
| Anything else a person asks | Built for questions about your business, answered from your own sources. | Yes. Writing, analysis, code, the open web: a general assistant, which is the point of it. |
| AI models you can bring | Yes. Run on our key, or bring your own from the providers we support. | Each runs its own vendor’s models. |
| Independent certifications | Not yet — we are going through the audits now, and until they are signed we say so rather than imply otherwise. Meanwhile you get the threat model itself. | Yes. All three publish independent audit and compliance certifications. |
Checked on 30 September 2026 against chatgpt.com/pricing, OpenAI’s company knowledge announcement and its help article on developer mode and MCP apps; claude.com/pricing, Anthropic’s help article on custom connectors and trust.anthropic.com; cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise, Google’s Gemini Enterprise documentation for AlloyDB and the Google Workspace Privacy Hub. Prices and product facts on someone else’s site change without telling us; if a row here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it.