# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

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.

- 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
- Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API: grade B, 62.8/100, rank #379 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/prisma-airs.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prisma-airs.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 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 | Granite Guardian | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 56 | 87 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +31 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 68 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 65 | Granite Guardian +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 85 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +27 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 0 | Granite Guardian +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 47 | 31 | Granite Guardian +16 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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

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

### Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API

1. Send `x-pan-token` and an `ai_profile` with `profile_name` or `profile_id` on every scan. Both come from Strata Cloud Manager, and a key works only in its own region
2. Put earlier turns first in `contents`. Only the last element is scanned, and the rest is context
3. Read `action` (allow or block) and `category`, then check `timeout` and `error`, because a detector that failed is reported in `errors` with a 200
4. 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
5. For MCP, connect to `/mcp` on the regional host with `x-pan-token` and `x-pan-profile` headers, and call `pan_inline_scan` yourself 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.


## For agents

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

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