Opportunities › Workplace search and chat for teams › Proposed app
Lantern Search
Self-hosted search and AI chat across your team's apps, on plain Postgres
- Score
- 58
- confidence 45
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 1
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2019
- Established market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Teams work with dense dashboards, sync status, and permission management for long stretches at their desks managing organizational knowledge. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Search
4 results, 3 apps- Q3 pricing proposalDrive
About this appAI proposal
Lantern Search connects the apps your team already uses, such as Google Drive, Slack and Confluence, and lets you search them from one box. It syncs content into your own Postgres database and ranks results with keyword and meaning-based search together.
Ask a question in chat and get an answer with links to the source documents and messages. Results follow the permissions of the original app, so people only see what they could already open.
It is built for small and mid-size teams who find enterprise workplace search too costly or too rigid. You host it yourself or choose managed hosting, and you can add your own connectors.
- Tagline
- One search box for every app your team uses, on your own Postgres.
- Voice
- PlainCalmPractical
- Why this name
- A lantern is what you carry into a dark room to find things. Short, easy to say, and it suggests finding without fuss.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
One search across your apps
Query Drive, Slack and Confluence at once and get a single ranked list with the source app shown.
No member yet
Hybrid keyword and vector search
BM25 and embeddings run together in Postgres, so exact terms and loose questions both find the right page.
No member yet
Chat with cited answers
Ask in plain language. Every answer links to the documents and messages it came from.
No member yet
Permission-aware results
Synced items keep the access rules of their source app, so nobody sees what they could not open before.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#0F4C5CDeep Teal · primary#F7F4EEPaper · surface#1B2528Ink · text#E09F3EAmber · accent#5B8C5AMoss · data
Typography
Aa
Lantern Search
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
One search box for every app your team uses, on your own Postgres.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no prices for Glean or others. These tiers are a starting point to test, based on the noted tier ideas of users, data volume and connected apps.
Self-host
Free
- Core search and chat
- 3 connectors
- Community support
Team
$99 a month
- Up to 50 users
- All standard connectors
- Managed hosting option
- Email support
Business
$299 a month
- Up to 250 users
- Custom connectors
- Priority support
Would you pay Team · $99 a month?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. Reached through sales, content and self-hosting communities. Search is used inside a team, and answers carry source links only to colleagues who already have access.
- Do they become customers?
- Colleagues who see it are already in the same paying team, so exposure adds little. Test whether self-hosting admins convert to managed hosting or paid support.
- First customers
- Engineering-led companies of 20 to 100 people using Google Drive, Slack and Confluence, where an admin or CTO can approve and run a self-hosted tool.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News and developer forums: Post a Show HN with an open install guide and a demo on public sample data.
- Self-hosting communities: Share a one-command Postgres setup and ask admins for connector requests.
- Direct outreach to CTOs: Offer a free pilot on one team's Slack and Drive to teams unhappy with enterprise search pricing.
- First milestone
- Ten teams self-host it and five of them pay for managed hosting or support within three months.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 177 points and 42 comments
- Public claimGlean is expensive and not very extensible according to some organizations
- Public claimThere is demand for self-hosted workplace search that small to mid-size teams can operate themselves
- Public claimWorkplace search needs to connect to multiple apps and provide unified search and chat
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · SearchPostgres full-text/BM25 extension plus pgvectorHybrid keyword and vector ranking inside the same database.
- This app · Background syncJob queue and worker processConnectors need scheduled, retryable syncs that run outside web requests.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalMirroring each source app's permissions correctly is hard; a mistake could expose private documents or messages in search.
- PlatformDrive, Slack and Confluence can change API limits, terms or app review rules, which may slow or block syncing.
- CommercialTeams may find self-hosting too much work, and the open-source alternatives may be good enough, leaving little to charge for.
- AIChat may give wrong answers or cite stale documents, which erodes trust quickly in a work tool.
- DataHolding copies of company messages and files raises security and privacy duties for managed hosting customers.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.