Head to head · Guard moderation · October 2026 research run
Granite Guardian vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Guardian's 60.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Guardian leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do guard moderation.
Which one, for what
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 0
- Maintenance & community, 47 against 31
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
Watch for
Trained and tested on English only, per the model card
Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API B
Good for A company already buying Palo Alto Networks through Strata Cloud Manager that wants prompt, response and MCP tool scanning with DLP and URL filtering from the same vendor.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 87 against 56
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 60
- Security & auth, 85 against 58
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
No public price, free tier or trial. Capacity is bought as Software NGFW credits, in steps of 1 billion tokens a month, through sales
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite Guardian | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 56 | 87 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +31 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 60 | 68 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 69 | 65 | Granite Guardian +4 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 58 | 85 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 0 | Granite Guardian +60 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 47 | 31 | Granite Guardian +16 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 70 | 71 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 60.1 · C | 62.8 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite Guardian | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | IBM | Palo Alto Networks, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://service.api.aisecurity.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/scan/sync/request |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the weights and the repository | Proprietary service under the Palo Alto Networks end user licence agreement. The Python SDK is under the PolyForm Internal Use licence 1.0.0, which is not an OSI licence |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-04-29 | 2026-05-15 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | |
| Privacy policy last updated | 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 | 182 stars | 10 stars, 999 PyPI/wk |
Verdicts
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.
Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
A public OpenAPI document, ten detection types in one call, tool-call scanning, a remote MCP server, rotating API keys and OAuth roles suit teams already on Strata Cloud Manager. Access needs Software NGFW credits bought through sales, with no public price, trial or self-serve signup, and payloads flagged malicious are kept for up to 10 years.
Before you call either
Granite Guardian
- 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 - 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 - Treat
yesas the criterion being met, which for built-in criteria means the risk is present. Treat a missing<score>tag as a failed check - Pass retrieved text through
documents=and tool schemas throughavailable_tools=inapply_chat_template, not inside the message text - Under Ollama, set
num_ctxin the request options. IBM's docs say the default context is short and long requests are truncated
Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Send
x-pan-tokenand anai_profilewithprofile_nameorprofile_idon every scan. Both come from Strata Cloud Manager, and a key works only in its own region - Put earlier turns first in
contents. Only the last element is scanned, and the rest is context - Read
action(allow or block) andcategory, then checktimeoutanderror, because a detector that failed is reported inerrorswith a 200 - Keep synchronous requests under 2 MB and asynchronous ones under 5 MB and 25 items, and fetch at most 5 scan or report IDs a call, 10 calls a minute
- For MCP, connect to
/mcpon the regional host withx-pan-tokenandx-pan-profileheaders, and callpan_inline_scanyourself before and after generation
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite Guardian or Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API?
Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Guardian's 60.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Guardian leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.
Do Granite Guardian and Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API need an API key?
Granite Guardian needs no key. Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Granite Guardian and Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Guardian. Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API has a hosted endpoint at https://service.api.aisecurity.paloaltonetworks.com/v1/scan/sync/request.
Other comparisons with Granite Guardian or Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Granite Guardian
- Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs Granite Guardian
- Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Granite Guardian
- Cisco AI Defense Inspection API vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Google Cloud Model Armor vs Granite Guardian
- Google Cloud Model Armor vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Granite Guardian vs LlamaFirewall
- Guardrails AI vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails) vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- LlamaFirewall vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- OpenAI Guardrails vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Granite Guardian vs Guardrails AI
- Granite Guardian vs Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails)
- Granite Guardian vs Llama Guard 4
- Granite Guardian vs Mistral Moderation API
- Granite Guardian vs NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails
- Granite Guardian vs OpenAI Guardrails
- Granite Guardian vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Llama Guard 4 vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Mistral Moderation API vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- OpenAI Moderation API vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Presidio vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API
- Granite Guardian vs Presidio
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-guardian-vs-prisma-airs.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/granite-guardian.json·/api/v1/tools/prisma-airs.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-guardian prisma-airs(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-guardian", "b": "prisma-airs"}at/mcp, no key