Lindy calls itself the AI employee that plugs into your tools, learns how you work, and takes real work off your plate. It lives where your team already talks: @mention it in a Slack channel, text it over iMessage, or let it work your inbox. It sits in your meetings, runs routines on a schedule, ships with 40+ skills, and keeps its memory in plain files you can open and edit. For a team that wants one capable assistant everybody can ask, it is one of the most polished options available.
General Input starts from a different unit of work. Instead of one assistant the whole company asks, you build a digital workforce: AI specialists that each own one recurring part of the business, like collections, prospect research, or the Monday report. Each specialist turns its job into skills, workflows, and apps your team can open, review, and share, so the process runs the same way every time and does not live inside one chat thread.
What Lindy does well
- It meets people in chat. Slack threads and @mentions, iMessage, and email are first-class, and setup is minutes, with no API keys or IT ticket.
- Meetings are built in. Recording, notes, a shared meeting library, scheduling, prep, and follow-up come in the box.
- Breadth of connections. 1,500+ integrations, any hosted MCP server, and computer use on paid plans for tools without either.
- Compliance for regulated teams. Lindy says it is SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA, and PIPEDA compliant, and Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, audit logs, and a signed BAA.
How they compare
| General Input | Lindy | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of workLindy: one shared AI employee the team asks. General Input: a specialist per recurring process, each with its own skills, workflows, and apps. | Specialists | Assistant |
| Natural language building | ||
| Reviewable workflow before it runsGeneral Input saves each automation as a workflow you can read, test, and edit. Lindy routines are instructions the assistant follows at run time. | ||
| Deterministic code workflowsGeneral Input runs fixed-step jobs as code that behaves the same on every run, with no model in the loop. | ||
| Chat in Slack and Microsoft Teams | ||
| Browser use for sites without an API | ||
| Meeting recording and notesLindy records meetings itself. General Input reads notes from tools like [Granola](/apps/granola) and [Gong](/apps/gong). | ||
| App integrationsLindy: 1,500+ plus MCP. General Input: 850+ apps with 80,000+ documented operations, plus custom API connections. | 850+ | 1,500+ |
| Approval before actions with outside impact | ||
| Per-run cost breakdownGeneral Input shows the credit cost of every run, by step. Lindy publishes credit ranges by job size. | ||
| Least-privilege credential scopingAgent Firewall limits each credential to specific operations, enforced outside the model. | ||
| Self-hosted / on-prem deployment |
Where they differ
What is the difference between an AI employee and a digital workforce?
An AI employee is one generalist the whole team hands work to. A digital workforce is several specialists, each owning one process end to end. The difference shows up a month in. With one assistant, how the weekly report gets built lives in a chat history and in whoever asked for it. With a specialist, the report is a saved skill, a scheduled workflow, and a dashboard app that anyone on the team can open, check, and change, and the next person who joins inherits it.
Can you see exactly what it will do before it runs?
Lindy's routines and skills are instructions the assistant interprets each time it runs, with approvals before anything that writes or sends. That is flexible, and it is also why the same routine can take a different path on different days. General Input saves each automation as a workflow you can read before it is switched on. Fixed-step jobs run as code that does the same thing every time, and only the steps that need judgment use a model.
What does it cost?
Lindy bills every active user in the workspace and pools their credits. Its pricing page lists monthly packs from 5,000 credits for $49.99, top-ups at $10 per 1,000 credits, and a $50 free trial that lasts 7 days. Monthly credits do not roll over, and when the pool runs out, Lindy pauses until it resets or someone tops up. General Input Pro is $30 per seat per month with 4,800 credits, the first month is 80% off, and every run shows its exact credit cost. Overages bill at the plan's rate, so workflows keep running.
Who controls what each agent can touch?
Both products ask before actions with outside impact. General Input adds Agent Firewall, which scopes each connected account to the specific operations a workflow needs, such as read-only CRM access or a single endpoint, and enforces that outside the model. Credentials never enter the model's context, every use is logged, and Enterprise customers can deploy on-prem.
When to use Lindy
Choose Lindy when you want one assistant the whole team can @mention in Slack or text from a phone, with meetings, inbox, and calendar handled in the same place. If the work is mostly asks that change daily, a capable generalist in chat is the right shape.
When to use General Input
- The work repeats. Collections, prospect research, reporting, onboarding, and other processes that should run the same way every week.
- You want to see the process. Each specialist's skills, workflows, and apps are files your team can open, review, and share.
- Some steps must be exact. Code workflows for fixed steps, agents only where judgment is needed.
- Security has to sign off. Agent Firewall scoping, logged credential use, approvals, and on-prem deployment on Enterprise.
- You want model choice. Two dozen models from nine labs, switchable per task.
FAQs
Is General Input a Lindy alternative?
Yes, for teams whose AI work is mostly recurring processes rather than one-off asks. General Input builds a specialist for each process, with workflows you can review, per-run costs, and credential scoping, and it also answers in Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Can General Input work in Slack like Lindy?
Yes. The General Input agent answers Slack channel @mentions and Microsoft Teams messages, with files in both directions, and it can search, run, and build workflows from there.
Does General Input use a browser for sites without an API?
Yes. Agents can drive a hosted browser with saved logins for portals and tools with no API, and they pause so you can sign in from chat instead of handling passwords.
Which is cheaper, Lindy or General Input?
It depends on how many people use it and how much work runs. Lindy bills every active user, with credit packs starting at $49.99 for 5,000 credits. General Input Pro is $30 per seat per month with 4,800 credits, and code workflows cost less than one credit per run.