CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · AI security & scanners
CAIN-42 vs Protect AI / Palo Alto Prisma AIRS
AI security suites that scan models, ML supply chains and prompts, and detect attacks on AI applications. Prisma AIRS brings this into the Palo Alto enterprise security platform.
What Protect AI / Palo Alto Prisma AIRS does well
- Model and ML supply-chain scanning and AI-SPM.
- Enterprise security distribution and threat research.
- Red-teaming and runtime protection for AI apps.
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 | Protect AI / Palo Alto Prisma AIRS | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Scanning and protecting AI apps and models | Protect source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Blocks the tool call at the boundary | Yes — MCPGate halts before the tool runs | Partial (runtime protection for AI apps) | |
| 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* | |
| Governs arbitrary MCP / shell / DB actions | Yes (any tool, via MCPGate) | Focused on protected AI apps | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | Talk to sales |
When to pick which
Pick Protect AI / Prisma AIRS to scan and protect the models and AI apps themselves. Pick CAIN-42 when the risk is the action an autonomous agent takes against your infrastructure.
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.