LangGuard
Deterministic runtime AI governance control plane
LangGuard is a deterministic runtime AI governance control plane. Two engines work across the full agent lifecycle: SCOPE-MCP maps and compliance-classifies an agent's action surface before it ships, and Arbiter deterministically authorizes every agent action before it executes — clearing safe actions with no added latency and routing anything that crosses a Segregation-of-Duties boundary or policy threshold to a named approver. The authorization is the governance; the audit trail is automatic.
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Arcade.dev
Agent identity & tool-calling runtime
Arcade.dev is an agent authorization and tool-calling runtime — "SSO for AI agents." Built by ex-Okta/Auth0 engineers, it lets agents act as the real user via OAuth, brokering tokens and secrets so tool calls run with the right identity and scopes, and enforcing per-action authorization at runtime.
Source: arcade.dev
How do LangGuard and Arcade.dev compare?
12 criteria that decide whether an enterprise can prove — not just hope — that its AI agents stay inside policy.
| Criterion | LangGuard | Arcade |
|---|---|---|
| Deterministic, rule-based authorization Provable allow/deny decisions, not ML/probabilistic detection | ● | ● |
| Pre-execution enforcement Evaluates and blocks an action before it executes | ● | ● |
| Segregation of Duties enforcement Conflict-of-duty rules across agent actions | ● | ○ |
| Excessive-agency prevention / least privilege Scopes each agent to the narrowest action surface | ● | ◐ |
| Design-time action-surface mapping Maps what an agent can do before it ships | ● | ◐ |
| Compliance-classified tools catalog Tools/MCP servers pre-scored against SoD & regulations at design time | ● | ◐ |
| Full lifecycle coverage (design-time + runtime) Governs the agent before and during production | ● | ◐ |
| Named-approver human-in-the-loop routing Routes risky actions to specific accountable approvers | ● | ◐ |
| SOX / GDPR / financial-GRC control mapping & evidence Maps agent actions to financial & privacy control obligations | ● | ○ |
| AI-specific standards (ISO 42001, EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, OWASP LLM) Alignment to emerging AI governance standards | ◐ | ○ |
| Immutable / tamper-evident audit ledger Cryptographically defensible evidence of every decision | ● | ◐ |
| GRC / internal-audit / IT-governance buyer fit Built for the compliance owner, not only the security engineer | ● | ○ |
What is Arcade.dev best at?
- OAuth token brokering and agent identity — its crown jewel, built by ex-Okta/Auth0 engineers
- Deterministic, scope-based authorization checks on each tool call
- Broad MCP runtime — 7,500+ tools across 81 servers, with an open-source SDK
- Pre/post-execution hooks that can inspect and block requests inline
Where does LangGuard pull ahead?
- No Segregation-of-Duties or conflict-of-duty enforcement
- Governance lives in developer-authored code hooks, not a GRC policy engine
- No design-time compliance classification; catalog is a tool registry, not risk-scored
- Compliance is a SOC 2 badge — no SOX, GDPR, or ISO 42001 control mapping
- Audit logs exist but are not positioned as tamper-evident compliance evidence; developer-led, not GRC
Which should you choose?
Arcade.dev is strong in its own category — Agent identity & tool auth. But securing how an agent operates is not the same as governing what it is allowed to do. LangGuard makes a deterministic, rule-based authorization decision on every action before it executes — enforcing Segregation of Duties, routing risky actions to named approvers, and emitting audit-grade SOX/GDPR evidence. It is the governance control plane that sits above the layer Arcade.dev operates in.
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What is the difference between LangGuard and Arcade.dev?
LangGuard is categorised as Deterministic runtime AI governance control plane. Arcade.dev is categorised as Agent identity & tool-calling runtime. The practical difference is where each one sits relative to the agent's action: one governs the request path, the other governs the decision to allow the action at all.
Does LangGuard enforce Segregation of Duties?
LangGuard enforces Segregation of Duties directly. Segregation of Duties is a conflict-of-duty rule across an agent's actions — the control that stops one agent both raising and approving the same transaction. It is the criterion most agent-security tools leave to the customer.
Does Arcade.dev enforce Segregation of Duties?
Arcade.dev does not enforce Segregation of Duties. Check this against your own control matrix before assuming runtime monitoring covers it — detecting a violation after the fact is not the same control as preventing it.
Which one gives you SOX and GDPR compliance evidence?
LangGuard maps agent actions to SOX and GDPR control obligations and emits evidence. Arcade.dev does not map to SOX or GDPR control obligations. Logging that an action happened is not the same as evidence that it was authorized against a named control, which is what an internal auditor asks for.
Can LangGuard and Arcade.dev be used together?
Yes. They operate at different layers, so running both is common — one handles the runtime path, the other the authorization decision. The question is not which to buy but which layer you have not covered yet.
How were these 12 criteria scored?
Each vendor was scored against 12 governance and compliance criteria using public documentation, product pages and published compliance material as of August 14, 2026. Full means the capability is documented and shipping; partial means it is indirect or requires customer-authored policy; absent means it is not publicly documented. No vendor was contacted for a private briefing.
How did we score this?
This comparison is first-party research by LangGuard. Every vendor in the set is scored against the same 12 governance and compliance criteria, drawn from public product documentation, pricing and compliance pages, and published technical material, last verified .
- ● Strong — the capability is documented and shipping.
- ◐ Partial — present but indirect, or dependent on policy the customer writes.
- ○ Absent — not publicly documented at the time of review.
We publish comparisons that include our own product, so treat the LangGuard column as a vendor claim and check it the same way you would check anyone else's. Scoring is against public material only; no vendor was given a private briefing or a right of reply. Found something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.
Sources: LangGuard platform · Arcade.dev — official site
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