CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · Agent identity & access
CAIN-42 vs Okta Agent SSO / XAA
Okta extends its identity platform to agents: agents as first-class identities in Universal Directory, Agent SSO, and Cross-App Access (XAA) with ID-JAG downscoped delegation.
What Okta Agent SSO / XAA does well
- Enterprise SSO and directory for agents.
- Downscoped, time-bounded on-behalf-of delegation.
- Ubiquitous enterprise identity footprint.
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 | Okta Agent SSO / XAA | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Agent identity, SSO and delegated access | Okta source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Blocks the tool call at the boundary | Yes — MCPGate halts before the tool runs | Partial (token/policy enforcement at access path) | |
| 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 | Token / audit records | |
| Authority continuity across change | Yes — a change forces an authority re-check | No* | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | Okta licensing |
When to pick which
Pick Okta when the identity system itself must know the agent. Pick CAIN-42 when the question is what a specific agent action is allowed to do, proven at the boundary.
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.