Wend vs Dex (2026)
Two ways to keep the people you know. What decides it is what an AI assistant may change once it is connected.
Quick verdict
We make Wend, so weigh this accordingly. Dex has more agent distribution than we do and a six-year head start. What it does not have is a step between an agent's write and your data: every Dex tool commits directly, two are annotated irreversible, and a scan of all 47 published schemas on 2026-08-06 returned nothing for provenance, propose, audit or approve. Buy Dex for a proven product today. Buy Wend if the writing should be previewed, approved, and traceable to a source a year later.
Published by Wend. Competitor claims come from their own material, with the date we checked them.
Wend, measured
92
people from one WhatsApp read, before you grant a single permission.
0.63s
to read 69,000 messages and find the people in them. No model call.
2.4s
for one extraction on the Mac itself, at no cost.
Measured on a real Mac running macOS 26.4.1. On-device extraction needs Apple silicon with Apple Intelligence turned on.
Side by side
| Dimension | Wend | Dex |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A private memory of the people you know, on your own Mac, read by whichever AI you use. It builds itself from what the machine holds, keeps a source on every fact, and plans your day around the people in it. | A mature personal CRM built on keep-in-touch reminders and a timeline per contact, with the widest agent surface here: 47 MCP tools, a ChatGPT app, a CLI, an agent skill and a public API. |
| Pricing | $29/mo or $290/yr, flat at any network size | $12/mo billed annually, $20/mo monthly (checked 2026-08-06) |
| Free tier | None. One price, and nothing is deleted if you stop paying | None. Removed in March 2023. A 7-day trial, then a wall |
| Availability | A Mac app. Cursor, Claude Code and other local agents connect automatically; Claude, ChatGPT and anything that speaks MCP points at one link. Google sign-in only | Shipping: web, mobile, browser extension, plus a separate Mac sync utility |
| Agent surface | MCP for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini and others, plus the web app | MCP with 47 tools, a ChatGPT app, a CLI, an agent skill and a REST API. Ahead of us here |
| What an agent write does | Becomes a proposal. Previewed in the conversation, edited by talking, committed on one approval | Commits immediately. dex_delete_contacts and dex_merge_contacts are annotated destructive and irreversible |
| Where a fact came from | Every fact links to the email, page, file or message behind it, and names the agent that proposed it | No provenance, audit or conflict language in any published tool schema (checked 2026-08-06) |
| Conflicting facts | Both shown, never silently resolved. You pick | Not addressed in their published material (checked 2026-08-06) |
| Your calendar | Google Calendar, connected and read on the Mac, so meetings and the people in them count as contact. The connection reads and never writes back, and titles and locations stay on the machine | One OAuth connection covers Gmail and Calendar. Their calendar tools will modify events Dex did not create |
| Your day | Wend lays the day out around the meetings already in it, and every block says why it is there: due tomorrow, or for someone three weeks past your usual rhythm. You accept the plan or discard it | Keep-in-touch reminders and a timeline per contact, which is the job it was built for and is good at. Where the time goes is yours to decide |
| Where your data lives | Your Mac holds the original and the raw evidence; a cloud copy keeps your agents answered when the Mac is closed | Their servers |
| Archive export by default, which is sanctioned and risk-free, or a browser extension in your own session. Ban risk stated where it exists | You sign in inside their app; their privacy policy says they retain credentials or tokens; sync runs server-side every 3 to 5 days | |
| LinkedIn ceiling | None | 2,500 synced connections on Premium, 9,000 on Professional. Past it, oldest contacts stop updating |
| Local Mac data | WhatsApp, Contacts, Calendar, iMessage, Granola notes. Extraction on the machine, and WhatsApp needs no permission at all | iMessage and calls through a separate sync utility |
| Maturity | New. Fewer public reviews, shorter track record | Since 2019, tens of thousands of users, ships fast |
Competitor facts and pricing last checked August 2026, from published vendor material. Verify on each vendor’s site.
Who should pick which
Pick Wend if…
- You do not want an assistant writing to your relationship data without a review step.
- You want to open the email a fact came from, a year later.
- You want one memory read by whichever assistant you use this year.
- You want the original on your own machine rather than on a vendor's servers.
- You want Wend noticing who you talk to as you work. It reads the screen, never the microphone.
- You want your LinkedIn data in without handing anyone a live session.
- You want the reaching out to end up on your calendar with time held for it, rather than on a list.
Pick Dex if…
- You want a proven product with years of reviews behind it, today.
- You want the widest agent tooling available and you are comfortable with direct writes.
- Keep-in-touch reminders are the main job and you like writing your own notes.
- You want it on Windows, or on a phone, which Wend does not do.
- You are a student or alum of a school in their program, where it is half price for two years.
The argument, in order
Start with the concession, because it carries the rest. Dex ships 47 MCP tools, a ChatGPT app, a CLI and a public API. Mesh ships one that reads and writes, folk shipped one in July 2026, and Attio, Cloze and Granola all ship hosted OAuth MCP. Agent access is commodity here.
That moves the real question one step down. Your assistant can change the record of the people you know in any of these products. What keeps that memory worth trusting is whether a person saw the claim before it landed, and whether the fact says where it came from afterwards.
Measured there, the category is close to uniform, and you can check this part. A scan of all 47 published Dex tool schemas on 2026-08-06 returned nothing for provenance, propose, audit, approve or conflict. Attio's per-call prompt comes closest, with no queue to review later and no source on what it wrote.
The gap stays open because it is a data model, not a feature. A fact carries a source only if the source was recorded the instant the fact was created, on every write path and every import. Ship the queue next quarter and the old facts still have nothing under them.
So Wend recorded the source on its first row and on every row since, and every agent write waits in a queue you approve. Every fact has a source, and you approved it.
Wend vs Dex: FAQ
Is Wend or Dex better?
They optimize for different things. Dex optimizes for coverage: 47 MCP tools, a ChatGPT app, a CLI, an API, six years of shipping. If breadth today is the test, Dex wins it. Wend optimizes for the memory being trustworthy and portable. We make Wend, so check the specifics rather than the conclusion.
Does Dex have a free plan?
No. Dex ran one from September 2020 and removed it in March 2023, and their Android listing still collects one-star reviews about it. Today it is a 7-day trial with no card, then a paywall, and their terms state no refunds. Wend has no free tier either: one price, and nothing is deleted for non-payment.
What is the actual difference if both have MCP servers?
The connector is commodity. What differs is what a write does when it lands. Dex's tools commit straight to your data and two are annotated irreversible. Wend's become proposals: the agent shows you the people and promises it found, you correct them by talking, and one approval commits the batch with a source on every fact.
How do Dex and Wend prices compare?
Dex is $12/mo billed annually and $20/mo monthly, with a Professional tier at $20 and $34 (checked 2026-08-06, verify at getdex.com). Wend is $29/mo or $290/yr, flat regardless of how many people you keep.
Does Wend remind me, or does it schedule the time?
It schedules. Wend reads your Google Calendar on the Mac, then lays the day out around the meetings already there: reach-out time for someone going quiet, preparation before a meeting that matters, promises you have not kept. The plan is a preview you accept or discard, and you can drag any block. It runs in Wend for Mac rather than through your agent.
Can I switch from Dex to Wend?
Yes. Export your Dex contacts as CSV and import them. A parser reads the file with no model involved, so a two thousand person export lands exactly as written. Tasks come across separately, from Apple Reminders, Obsidian, Todoist or Google Tasks.
A digital brain for the people in your life.
It installs on your Mac, builds the graph out of what is already there, and answers from the AI you already use. Every fact keeps its source. $29 a month, flat at any network size.
Access is invite only right now.