CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · AI security & scanners
CAIN-42 vs Cisco AI Defense
An enterprise AI security product for discovering AI apps and agents, validating models and protecting AI traffic, delivered through Cisco's security portfolio.
What Cisco AI Defense does well
- Enterprise discovery of shadow AI and agents.
- Validation of models and red-teaming.
- Cisco distribution and network integration.
What CAIN-42 does differently
- Enforces at the tool-call boundary, before anything runs.
- Orders authorization through a Byzantine quorum (3-of-4): one "yes" is never enough.
- Leaves a per-action signed receipt you can verify offline with a clean-room verifier.
- Authority continuity: a change to the model, tool, memory, skill or delegation forces a re-check.
- Self-serve from $19.75/mo; runs hosted, self-hosted or air-gapped.
Capability difference
| Capability | CAIN-42 | Cisco AI Defense | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Enterprise AI discovery, validation and traffic protection | Cisco source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Blocks the tool call at the boundary | Yes — MCPGate halts before the tool runs | Partial (AI traffic protection) | |
| Byzantine-ordered authorization (quorum cert) | Yes — 3-of-4 PBFT quorum certificate | No* | |
| Per-action signed receipt, offline-verifiable | Yes — Ed25519, hash-chained, offline-verifiable | No* | |
| Cloud-agnostic action gate | Hosted, self-hosted or air-gapped | Cisco-centric deployment | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | Talk to sales |
When to pick which
Pick Cisco AI Defense inside a Cisco security estate. Pick CAIN-42 for a vendor-neutral, self-hostable action boundary with per-action proof.
Based on each vendor's public homepage and product pages, last reviewed 2026-10-14. No affiliation and no claim about their internals. "No*" means we found no public documentation of that capability, not that the vendor cannot do it.