CAIN-42 CAIN StudioHow CAIN-42 compares · Agent identity & access
CAIN-42 vs SPIFFE / SPIRE
A CNCF-graduated open standard for workload identity: attested, short-lived, auto-rotated X.509/JWT SVIDs and mTLS. SPIRE is the reference implementation.
What SPIFFE / SPIRE does well
- A graduated, multi-vendor open standard for strong workload identity.
- Automatic rotation and attestation.
- Free and widely implemented.
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 | SPIFFE / SPIRE | Source (verified 2026-10-14) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Runtime governance in the execution path | Workload identity substrate | SPIFFE source page verified 2026-10-14 |
| Agent-specific authority state | Yes (authority continuity + lease) | Workloads are treated alike; agents are not | |
| 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 | SVIDs (identity, not action evidence) | |
| Delegation attenuation proof | Yes | Token exchange (RFC 8693), outside the spec | |
| Public entry price | $19.75/mo self-serve | Free / OSS |
When to pick which
Pick SPIFFE/SPIRE for the identity foundation. Pick CAIN-42 for authority state, delegation attenuation and per-action evidence above that identity.
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.