CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · Policy & authorization
CAIN-42 vs Permit.io / Oso
Fine-grained authorization platforms (RBAC, ABAC and ReBAC) used to author and enforce access decisions in applications.
What Permit.io / Oso does well
- Turnkey authorization with policy-as-code.
- Good developer experience and SDKs.
- Established in the application-authorization market.
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 | Permit.io / Oso | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Fine-grained application authorization | Permit.io source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Agent concept (lease, attenuation, trust decay) | Yes | General application subjects | |
| Byzantine-ordered authorization (quorum cert) | Yes — 3-of-4 PBFT quorum certificate | Not in scope | |
| Per-action signed receipt, offline-verifiable | Yes — Ed25519, hash-chained, offline-verifiable | Audit logs | |
| Governs the tool call itself | Yes — MCPGate halts before the tool runs | Access decisions in-app | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | Usage-based tiers |
When to pick which
Pick Permit.io / Oso for application authorization. Pick CAIN-42 when the subject is an autonomous agent and the decision must be enforced and proven at the action 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.