# LlamaFirewall vs OpenAI Guardrails

> OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against LlamaFirewall's 50.8 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do guard injection. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-openai-guardrails
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-openai-guardrails.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-openai-guardrails.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-openai-guardrails.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

OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against LlamaFirewall's 50.8 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do guard injection.

- LlamaFirewall: grade D, 50.8/100, rank #682 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/llamafirewall.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/llamafirewall.json
- OpenAI Guardrails: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #175 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-guardrails.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-guardrails.json

## Which one, for what

### LlamaFirewall (D)

Good for: A Python agent team that wants injection, hidden-character and generated-code checks in process, is willing to pin dependencies or install from main, and can get the gated weights.

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

Watch for: No PyPI release since 1.0.3 on 29 May 2025, and no changelog, tags or deprecation notes were found

### OpenAI Guardrails (B)

Good for: Teams already on the OpenAI client or Agents SDK that want several checks from one config file with little code.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 53
- Schema & documentation, 66 against 49
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 50
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 58

Watch for: By default a check that fails to run returns `tripwire_triggered=False`, so the request continues. Strict mode is opt-in


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LlamaFirewall | OpenAI Guardrails | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 53 | 73 | OpenAI Guardrails +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 49 | 66 | OpenAI Guardrails +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 73 | OpenAI Guardrails +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 59 | OpenAI Guardrails +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 60 | OpenAI Guardrails +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 89 | OpenAI Guardrails +74 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 76 | OpenAI Guardrails +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.8 · D** | **69.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LlamaFirewall | OpenAI Guardrails |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Meta | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (library). The Prompt Guard 2 weights it downloads are under the Llama 4 Community Licence | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2025-05-29 | 2026-09-10 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 4.4k stars, 1k PyPI/wk | 259 stars, 19k npm/wk, 105k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**LlamaFirewall.** One `scan()` call runs several checks on the owner's machine and returns a short typed result. The last PyPI release is 1.0.3 from 29 May 2025, and its Prompt Guard loader imports a `huggingface_hub` class that current versions no longer export, so a fresh install needs older pins. The classifier weights also need Meta's manual approval.

**OpenAI Guardrails.** MIT-licensed wrapper that adds twelve configurable checks to OpenAI client calls from one JSON file, with tool-level injection checks for the Agents SDK. The README labels it a preview at version 0.3.3, and by default a check that fails to run is reported as passed unless `raise_guardrail_errors=True` is set.

## Before you call either

### LlamaFirewall

1. Pin `huggingface_hub` below 1.0 and a matching `transformers` 4.x before importing the Prompt Guard scanner from the 1.0.3 wheel, or install from main
2. Get access to `meta-llama/Llama-Prompt-Guard-2-86M` and set a Hugging Face token first. Without one the loader prompts for a login and a headless run stalls
3. Call `scan_async` inside a running event loop. `scan()` wraps `asyncio.run` and fails there. `scan_async` returns score 0.0 and reason `default` on every allow
4. Split text longer than 512 tokens yourself before a Prompt Guard scan. The library truncates and does not chunk
5. Do not feed a block `reason` back to the model. The Prompt Guard reason quotes the full scanned text, and the hidden ASCII reason decodes the hidden payload

### OpenAI Guardrails

1. Pass `raise_guardrail_errors=True` to the client. The default treats a check that failed to run as passed
2. Run `python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm` before using Contains PII, or client initialisation fails
3. Catch `GuardrailTripwireTriggered`, and append a user message to history only after the call returns without it
4. Use `block=true` for Contains PII in the output stage. Masking works only in the pre-flight stage
5. Keep `stream=False` where output must be checked before it is shown, and budget one extra model call per LLM-based check

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, LlamaFirewall or OpenAI Guardrails?

OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against LlamaFirewall's 50.8 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Are LlamaFirewall and OpenAI Guardrails open source?

Yes. LlamaFirewall is open source (MIT (library). The Prompt Guard 2 weights it downloads are under the Llama 4 Community Licence). OpenAI Guardrails is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with LlamaFirewall or OpenAI Guardrails

- [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-bedrock-guardrails-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-ai-content-safety-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-ai-content-safety-vs-openai-guardrails.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 OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-inspection-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Google Cloud Model Armor vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-model-armor-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Google Cloud Model Armor vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-model-armor-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Granite Guardian vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-guardian-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Guardrails AI vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guardrails-ai-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Guardrails AI vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/guardrails-ai-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails) vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lakera-guard-vs-llamafirewall.md)
- [Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails) vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lakera-guard-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [LlamaFirewall vs NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-nemo-guardrails.md)
- [LlamaFirewall vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-prisma-airs.md)
- [NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nemo-guardrails-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [OpenAI Guardrails vs Prisma AIRS AI Runtime Security API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-guardrails-vs-prisma-airs.md)
- [Granite Guardian vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-guardian-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Llama Guard 4 vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Mistral Moderation API vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-moderation-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [OpenAI Guardrails vs OpenAI Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-guardrails-vs-openai-moderation.md)
- [LlamaFirewall vs Presidio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-microsoft-presidio.md)
- [LlamaFirewall vs Mistral Moderation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llamafirewall-vs-mistral-moderation.md)
- [Presidio vs OpenAI Guardrails](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-presidio-vs-openai-guardrails.md)
- [Llama Guard 4 vs LlamaFirewall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-guard-vs-llamafirewall.md)