# Google Cloud Model Armor vs Granite Guardian

> Google Cloud Model Armor scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Granite Guardian's 60.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Granite Guardian leads on payments & pricing. Both do guard injection. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Google Cloud Model Armor scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Granite Guardian's 60.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Granite Guardian leads on payments & pricing. Both do guard injection.

- Google Cloud Model Armor: grade BB, 77.9/100, rank #16 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-model-armor.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-model-armor.json
- Granite Guardian: grade C, 60.1/100, rank #478 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-guardian.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/granite-guardian.json

## Which one, for what

### Google Cloud Model Armor (BB)

Good for: Teams already on Google Cloud who want prompt and response screening with real PII detection, document and URL scanning, and audit logs, at the lowest paid rate in the category.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 56
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 60
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 69
- Security & auth, 100 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 47
- Transparency & trust, 87 against 70

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: OAuth only, and a template must exist in the same location as the endpoint before the first call

### Granite Guardian (C)

Good for: A team with a GPU that wants one English-language judge for harm, jailbreaks, RAG groundedness, function-call checks and house rules, under a permissive licence with no gate.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: Trained and tested on English only, per the model card


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Cloud Model Armor | Granite Guardian | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 56 | Google Cloud Model Armor +34 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 60 | Google Cloud Model Armor +18 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 69 | Google Cloud Model Armor +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 100 | 58 | Google Cloud Model Armor +42 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 60 | Granite Guardian +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 47 | Google Cloud Model Armor +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 70 | Google Cloud Model Armor +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **77.9 · BB** | **60.1 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Cloud Model Armor | Granite Guardian |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model API |
| Vendor | Google Cloud | IBM |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://modelarmor.{location}.rep.googleapis.com/v1/projects/{project}/locations/{location}/templates/{template}:sanitizeUserPrompt` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache 2.0 for the weights and the repository |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-04-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-02 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes |  |
| 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 | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 210k npm/wk, 471k PyPI/wk | 182 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Google Cloud Model Armor.** 2 million free tokens a month, then $0.10 per million. OAuth only, and a template must exist in the same location as the endpoint before the first call.

**Granite Guardian.** One ungated Apache 2.0 model judges harm, jailbreaks, RAG groundedness, function-call errors and custom criteria, with signed weights and published evaluation code. It is trained and tested on English only, each call checks one criterion, the 4.1 prompt format differs from 3.x, and IBM's watsonx.ai lists only the deprecated 3.0 model.

## Before you call either

### Google Cloud Model Armor

1. Create one template per location you call from. A template in us-central1 doesn't answer on the europe-west2 endpoint
2. Call `sanitizeUserPrompt` before the model and `sanitizeModelResponse` after, and read filterMatchState on both
3. Treat EXECUTION_SKIPPED as unchecked, not clean. It means the input went over the filter's 65,536-token cap
4. Pin the template to the Stable alias and move off v1 and v2 before 17 December 2026. In asia-northeast3, v1 stays the Stable version
5. Retry 500, 502, 503 and 504 with truncated exponential backoff, and keep fan-out under the 1,200 queries a minute shared by the project

### Granite Guardian

1. Append the `<guardian>` block as the final user message, with the mode line, `### Criteria:` and `### Scoring Schema:`. Copy the strings from the model card, because no package builds them
2. Use the no-think instruction for gating and parse `<score>`. Think mode writes a reasoning trace first, and the card's examples allow up to 2,048 output tokens
3. Treat `yes` as the criterion being met, which for built-in criteria means the risk is present. Treat a missing `<score>` tag as a failed check
4. Pass retrieved text through `documents=` and tool schemas through `available_tools=` in `apply_chat_template`, not inside the message text
5. Under Ollama, set `num_ctx` in the request options. IBM's docs say the default context is short and long requests are truncated

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Google Cloud Model Armor or Granite Guardian?

Google Cloud Model Armor scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Granite Guardian's 60.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Granite Guardian leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Google Cloud Model Armor and Granite Guardian need an API key?

Google Cloud Model Armor uses an OAuth sign-in. Granite Guardian needs no key.

### Can an agent call Google Cloud Model Armor and Granite Guardian without installing anything?

Google Cloud Model Armor has a hosted endpoint at https://modelarmor.{location}.rep.googleapis.com/v1/projects/{project}/locations/{location}/templates/{template}:sanitizeUserPrompt. No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Guardian.


## For agents

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

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- [Google Cloud Model Armor vs OpenAI Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-model-armor-vs-openai-moderation.md)
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