# AgentGate vs OpenAI Guardrails

> OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) to AgentGate's 48.5 (D) for policy enforcement. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-openai-guardrails
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-openai-guardrails.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentgate-vs-openai-guardrails.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against AgentGate's 48.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. 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
- OpenAI Guardrails: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #194 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-guardrails.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-guardrails.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.

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

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`

### OpenAI Guardrails (B)

Good for: Teams already on the OpenAI client or Agents SDK that want several checks from one config file with little code.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 44
- Schema & documentation, 66 against 47
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 53
- Security & auth, 59 against 49
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 28
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 56

Watch for: By default a check that fails to run returns `tripwire_triggered=False`, so the request continues. Strict mode is opt-in


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AgentGate | OpenAI Guardrails | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 44 | 73 | OpenAI Guardrails +29 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 47 | 66 | OpenAI Guardrails +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 73 | OpenAI Guardrails +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 59 | OpenAI Guardrails +10 |
| 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 | 89 | OpenAI Guardrails +61 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 76 | OpenAI Guardrails +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **48.5 · D** | **69.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AgentGate | OpenAI Guardrails |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Mohit Singh (mohitdebian) | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-10 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 259 stars, 19k npm/wk, 105k PyPI/wk |

## 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.

**OpenAI Guardrails.** MIT-licensed wrapper that adds twelve configurable checks to OpenAI client calls from one JSON file, with tool-level injection checks for the Agents SDK. The README labels it a preview at version 0.3.3, and by default a check that fails to run is reported as passed unless `raise_guardrail_errors=True` is set.

## 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

### OpenAI Guardrails

1. Pass `raise_guardrail_errors=True` to the client. The default treats a check that failed to run as passed
2. Run `python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm` before using Contains PII, or client initialisation fails
3. Catch `GuardrailTripwireTriggered`, and append a user message to history only after the call returns without it
4. Use `block=true` for Contains PII in the output stage. Masking works only in the pre-flight stage
5. Keep `stream=False` where output must be checked before it is shown, and budget one extra model call per LLM-based check

## Questions

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

OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against AgentGate's 48.5 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

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

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

### Are AgentGate and OpenAI Guardrails open source?

Yes. AgentGate is open source (MIT). OpenAI Guardrails is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with AgentGate or OpenAI Guardrails

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