# AgentGate vs Guardrails AI

> Guardrails AI scores 49.6 (D) to AgentGate's 48.5 (D) for policy enforcement. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-15

Guardrails AI scores 49.6 (D) on agent readiness against AgentGate's 48.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. AgentGate leads on security & auth. Both do policy enforcement.

- AgentGate: grade D, 48.5/100, rank #883 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentgate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentgate.json
- Guardrails AI: grade D, 49.6/100, rank #853 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/guardrails-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guardrails-ai.json
- Best guardrails and safety filters for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/guardrails/index.md
- All 132 guardrails comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guardrails/index.md

## Which one, for what

### AgentGate (D)

Good for: A team that wants a self-hosted check between an agent and its shell, database or webhook tools, with a human approval queue.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 49 against 44

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Guardrails AI loses 6 points for them

Watch for: Agent endpoints need no key unless `AG_AGENT_KEY` is set, the proxy binds 0.0.0.0:8080, and the dashboard key defaults to `dev-key-123`

### Guardrails AI (D)

Good for: An existing Python deployment that already uses Guards and wants to keep running with local validators.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 58 against 44
- Schema & documentation, 59 against 47
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 53
- Maintenance & community, 44 against 28

Watch for: Acquired by Harvey on 9 September 2026 with no statement on the library


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AgentGate | Guardrails AI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 44 | 58 | Guardrails AI +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 47 | 59 | Guardrails AI +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 63 | Guardrails AI +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 44 | AgentGate +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 28 | 44 | Guardrails AI +16 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 59 | Guardrails AI +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -6 | |
| **Total** | | **48.5 · D** | **49.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AgentGate | Guardrails AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Mohit Singh (mohitdebian) | Guardrails AI (Harvey) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | none | 2026-08-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-08-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-05-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 7.3k stars, 81 npm/wk, 32k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**AgentGate.** An agent or its host can send each tool call to one REST endpoint, or wrap an MCP server, and get allow, deny or ask from a local classifier and a YAML policy, with an audit log and approval queue. The project is three days old, auth is off by default, and no detection accuracy is published.

**Guardrails AI.** Validators have configurable actions for failed checks. Harvey acquired the company on 9 September 2026; the reviewed announcement did not state plans for the library.

## Before you call either

### AgentGate

1. Create a session with the user's real goal first. The goal-alignment head scores every later call against it
2. Pass earlier tool results in `history_override` with `untrusted: true` for web or email content, or the injection head sees only the action
3. On `ask`, stop and tell the user the `decision_id`. Polling `/v1/decisions/:id` needs the dashboard key
4. Treat `allow_with_checkpoint` as allow and keep the `checkpoint_id` for an undo
5. Expect HTTP 404 with `not_found` for an unknown session and 401 when the owner has set an agent key

### Guardrails AI

1. Pin guardrails-ai==0.11.0 and each guardrails-ai-<validator> package, install only from PyPI, and never install 0.10.1
2. Import validators from guardrails_ai.<name>, not guardrails.hub, and don't run guardrails hub install
3. Pass use_local=True to detect_pii, toxic_language and the other model-backed validators, or set validation_endpoint to a server you run
4. Set enable_metrics to false in ~/.guardrailsrc if you don't want usage metrics sent
5. Avoid building on reask and RAIL. The open 1.0.0 issues plan to remove both

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AgentGate or Guardrails AI?

Guardrails AI scores 49.6 (D) on agent readiness against AgentGate's 48.5 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. AgentGate leads on security & auth.

### Can an agent call AgentGate and Guardrails AI without installing anything?

AgentGate runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Guardrails AI.

### Are AgentGate and Guardrails AI open source?

Yes. AgentGate is open source (MIT). Guardrails AI is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-guardrails-ai.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-guardrails-ai.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agentgate", "b": "guardrails-ai"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agentgate guardrails-ai`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agentgate.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/guardrails-ai.json

## Other comparisons with AgentGate or Guardrails AI

- [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Guardrails AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-guardrails-ai.md)
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- [AgentGate vs Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-azure-ai-content-safety.md)
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