CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · Platform agent governance
CAIN-42 vs Microsoft Agent 365 + Entra Agent ID
Agent 365 (GA 2026-05-01) is a centralized agent registry, lifecycle and access-control plane in the M365 admin center, with Entra Agent ID treating agents as first-class identities: agent blueprints, on-behalf-of delegation, and Conditional Access for agents.
What Microsoft Agent 365 + Entra Agent ID does well
- Centralized enterprise agent registry, lifecycle and offboarding.
- Agents as first-class identities with on-behalf-of delegation and Conditional Access.
- Large enterprise distribution, SSO and vendor compliance programs.
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 | Microsoft Agent 365 + Entra Agent ID | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Enterprise agent identity, registry & lifecycle control plane | Microsoft source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Blocks the tool call at the boundary | Yes — MCPGate halts before the tool runs | Policy-based runtime blocking (preview as of 2026) | |
| 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 | Audit / governance records in Purview | |
| Authority continuity across change | Yes — a change forces an authority re-check | No* | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | USD 15/user/month add-on |
When to pick which
Pick Agent 365 to inventory and govern agents across a Microsoft estate. Pick CAIN-42 when the risk is one specific agent action and you want a quorum-ordered verdict plus a receipt you can verify yourself, including outside Microsoft's cloud.
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.