# Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Cisco AI Defense Inspection API > Amazon Bedrock Guardrails scores 74.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Cisco AI Defense Inspection API's 61.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cisco AI Defense Inspection API leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do guard injection. Category… - Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection - Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.md (~3,050 tokens) - Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts) - JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json) - 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 - Updated: 2026-10-09 Amazon Bedrock Guardrails scores 74.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Cisco AI Defense Inspection API's 61.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cisco AI Defense Inspection API leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do guard injection. - Amazon Bedrock Guardrails: grade BB, 74.8/100, rank #62 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-bedrock-guardrails.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-bedrock-guardrails.json - Cisco AI Defense Inspection API: grade C, 61.3/100, rank #429 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cisco-ai-defense-inspection.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cisco-ai-defense-inspection.json ## Which one, for what ### Amazon Bedrock Guardrails (BB) Good for: A team already on AWS that wants one versioned policy covering topics, PII masking, grounding and prompt attacks in front of any model. Ahead on: - Schema & documentation, 92 against 59 - Agent ergonomics, 93 against 67 - Security & auth, 94 against 81 - Payments & pricing, 20 against 0 Also in its favour: - Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better - No incidents deducted, where Cisco AI Defense Inspection API loses 3 points for them Watch for: Per-policy billing, so four paid policies on one request cost four times, and no free tier ### Cisco AI Defense Inspection API (C) Good for: A company already buying Cisco security through Security Cloud Control that wants its own application to decide what to do with each verdict. Ahead on: - Maintenance & community, 80 against 45 - Transparency & trust, 76 against 67 Watch for: No public price, free tier or trial for the Inspection API. Subscriptions are bought through sales and activated with a claim code ## Score by category | Category | Weight | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails | Cisco AI Defense Inspection API | Edge | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 80 | even | | Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 59 | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails +33 | | Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 93 | 67 | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails +26 | | Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 94 | 81 | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails +13 | | Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 0 | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails +20 | | Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run | | Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 80 | Cisco AI Defense Inspection API +35 | | Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 76 | Cisco AI Defense Inspection API +9 | | Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | | | **Total** | | **74.8 · BB** | **61.3 · C** | | ## Facts side by side | Fact | Amazon Bedrock Guardrails | Cisco AI Defense Inspection API | | --- | --- | --- | | Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API | | Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Cisco Systems, Inc. | | Hosted endpoint | `https://bedrock-runtime.{region}.amazonaws.com/guardrail/{id}/version/{version}/apply` | `https://us.api.inspect.aidefense.security.cisco.com/api/v1/inspect/chat` | | Transports | HTTP | HTTP | | Auth | API key | API key | | Pricing | Pay per use | Paid | | x402 | no | no | | Licence | none | Proprietary service under Cisco's General Terms and the AI Defense Offer Description. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0 | | Read-only variant documented | no | no | | llms.txt | yes | no | | Last release | 2026-06-23 | 2026-09-23 | | Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | | | Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | no document linked | | Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | | | Terms restrict automated access | yes | | | Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | | | Terms or service can change without notice | yes | | | Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | | | Popularity | 17M npm/wk | 35 stars, 4k PyPI/wk | | Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | none | ## Verdicts **Amazon Bedrock Guardrails.** ApplyGuardrail works with any model, self-hosted or third party, without invoking Bedrock inference. Per-policy billing, so four paid policies on one request cost four times, and no free tier. **Cisco AI Defense Inspection API.** Per-connection API keys with expiry, revocation and regeneration, published limits of 60,000 calls a minute, weekly dated release notes and a one-year retention statement suit companies already on Cisco Security Cloud Control. Access needs a subscription bought through sales, with no public price or trial for the API, and the developer changelog has one entry from February 2025. ## Before you call either ### Amazon Bedrock Guardrails 1. Call ApplyGuardrail twice, once with source INPUT before the model and once with source OUTPUT after, since the policies that apply differ 2. Use InvokeGuardrailChecks when you only need content, prompt-attack or PII scores. It needs no guardrail id and runs in detect-only mode 3. Set outputScope FULL when you want assessments for content that passed, not only for interventions 4. Budget in text units of 1,000 characters per policy. A 5,000-character tool result is five units on every paid policy 5. Retry ThrottlingException (429) and ServiceUnavailableException (503) with exponential backoff, but treat a 400 ServiceQuotaExceededException as a quota to raise ### Cisco AI Defense Inspection API 1. Send the key in `X-Cisco-AI-Defense-API-Key` to `POST /api/v1/inspect/chat` on the regional host where the tenant was created. US, Europe and Asia Pacific hosts differ 2. If the connection has a policy, `enabled_rules` in the request is ignored. Pass `enabled_rules` only for connections with no policy 3. The API never blocks anything itself. Read `is_safe` and `action` in the response and enforce the decision in your own code 4. On 429, wait and retry. The organisation has gone over one million tokens in parallel or 60,000 calls a minute 5. Don't request the Toxicity rule. It was removed on 16 September 2026, and the Safety rules such as Hate Speech, Harassment and Profanity replace it ## Questions ### Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Bedrock Guardrails or Cisco AI Defense Inspection API? Amazon Bedrock Guardrails scores 74.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Cisco AI Defense Inspection API's 61.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cisco AI Defense Inspection API leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. ### Do Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and Cisco AI Defense Inspection API need an API key? Both need an API key. ### Can an agent call Amazon Bedrock Guardrails and Cisco AI Defense Inspection API without installing anything? Yes. Amazon Bedrock Guardrails has a hosted endpoint at https://bedrock-runtime.{region}.amazonaws.com/guardrail/{id}/version/{version}/apply and Cisco AI Defense Inspection API at https://us.api.inspect.aidefense.security.cisco.com/api/v1/inspect/chat. ## For agents - This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.min.md - Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "amazon-bedrock-guardrails", "b": "cisco-ai-defense-inspection"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare amazon-bedrock-guardrails cisco-ai-defense-inspection` - Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-bedrock-guardrails.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cisco-ai-defense-inspection.json ## Other comparisons with Amazon Bedrock Guardrails or Cisco AI Defense Inspection API - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-azure-ai-content-safety.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Google Cloud Model Armor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-google-model-armor.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Granite Guardian](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-granite-guardian.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Guardrails AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-guardrails-ai.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-lakera-guard.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-llamafirewall.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-nemo-guardrails.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-openai-guardrails.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-prisma-airs.md) - [Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs Cisco AI Defense Inspection API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-ai-content-safety-vs-cisco-ai-defense-inspection.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Google Cloud Model Armor](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-google-model-armor.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Granite Guardian](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-granite-guardian.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Guardrails AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-guardrails-ai.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-lakera-guard.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-llamafirewall.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-nemo-guardrails.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-openai-guardrails.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-prisma-airs.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Llama Guard 4](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-llama-guard.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Mistral Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-mistral-moderation.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs OpenAI Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-openai-moderation.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Llama Guard 4](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-llama-guard.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Mistral Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-mistral-moderation.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs OpenAI Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-openai-moderation.md) - [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Presidio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-microsoft-presidio.md) - [Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Presidio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-microsoft-presidio.md)