# Mistral Moderation API vs OpenAI Guardrails (slim)

> OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Mistral Moderation API's 58.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Mistral Moderation API leads on schema & documentation and transparency & trust. Both do guard moderation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and…

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-moderation-vs-openai-guardrails.md (~2,700 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-moderation-vs-openai-guardrails.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mistral-moderation-vs-openai-guardrails
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

OpenAI Guardrails scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Mistral Moderation API's 58.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Mistral Moderation API leads on schema & documentation and transparency & trust. Both do guard moderation.

- Mistral Moderation API: C 58.4, rank #522 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mistral-moderation.min.md
- OpenAI Guardrails: B 69.5, rank #175 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-guardrails.min.md
- Mistral Moderation API, good for A free classifier for an agent that also needs PII, jailbreak and advice categories, or for a Mistral-hosted agent that can set the guardrail inline. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 85 against 66; Transparency & trust, 81 against 76. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.
- OpenAI Guardrails, 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 40; Security & auth, 59 against 54; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40; Maintenance & community, 89 against 33. Also Open source.

| Category | Mistral Moderation API | OpenAI Guardrails |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 40 | 73 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 85 | 66 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 75 | 73 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 54 | 59 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 33 | 89 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 81 | 76 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Mistral Moderation API | OpenAI Guardrails |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Mistral AI | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.mistral.ai/v1/moderations` | no (local only) |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-03-01 | 2026-09-10 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-25 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-03 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 769 stars, 8.4M npm/wk, 3.7M PyPI/wk | 259 stars, 19k npm/wk, 105k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |