# Llama Guard 4 vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API

> Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Llama Guard 4's 49.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Llama Guard 4 leads on payments & pricing. Both do guard moderation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs.md (~2,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs.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

Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Llama Guard 4's 49.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Llama Guard 4 leads on payments & pricing. Both do guard moderation.

- Llama Guard 4: grade D, 49.1/100, rank #713 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/llama-guard.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/llama-guard.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

### Llama Guard 4 (D)

Good for: A team outside the EU with a GPU that wants content moderation of text and images on its own hardware, against a fixed 14-category policy it can edit in the prompt.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 0

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

Watch for: Weights last changed on 29 April 2025, with no changelog, version tags or stated deprecation policy

### 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 38
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 52
- Security & auth, 85 against 53
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 55

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 | Llama Guard 4 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 38 | 87 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +49 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 68 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 65 | Llama Guard 4 +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 85 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 0 | Llama Guard 4 +45 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 28 | 31 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 71 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.1 · D** | **62.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Llama Guard 4 | Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Meta | 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 | Llama 4 Community Licence (source-available weights, not an OSI licence), with the Llama 4 acceptable use policy | 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 | 2025-04-29 | 2026-05-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-04-05 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| 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 | 4.4k stars | 10 stars, 999 PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Llama Guard 4.** A single self-hosted model classifies text and multi-image prompts against 14 MLCommons-aligned hazard categories and answers in a few tokens. The weights have not changed since 29 April 2025, download access needs Meta's manual approval, and the licence withholds the grant from individuals and companies based in the European Union.

**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

### Llama Guard 4

1. Request access on the Hugging Face page before anything else. Approval is manual, and the form cannot be edited after submission
2. Send only the user turn to check an input, and the user turn plus the model's answer to check an output. The template picks the role from the message count
3. Parse the first line for `safe` or `unsafe` and the second for category codes. Set `max_new_tokens` to about 10 and turn sampling off
4. Do not send an image with no text. Meta says the model is not an image-only classifier, and S14 is skipped when an image is present
5. Pair it with a prompt-attack detector. The card says the model can itself be moved by adversarial or injected text

### 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, Llama Guard 4 or Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API?

Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API scores 62.8 (B) on agent readiness against Llama Guard 4's 49.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Llama Guard 4 leads on payments & pricing.

### Do Llama Guard 4 and Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API need an API key?

Llama Guard 4 needs no key. Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Llama Guard 4 and Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Llama Guard 4. 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/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-prisma-airs.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "llama-guard", "b": "prisma-airs"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare llama-guard prisma-airs`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/llama-guard.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/prisma-airs.json

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