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.
More: LangGuard platform
WitnessAI
AI security & governance (AI firewall)
WitnessAI is an inline "AI firewall" — agentless network-level discovery (Observe), an intent-based policy engine (Control), and inline protection with PII tokenization and prompt-injection blocking (Protect), enforcing at the tool-call and MCP-server level.
Source: witness.ai
How do LangGuard and WitnessAI compare?
12 criteria that decide whether an enterprise can prove — not just hope — that its AI agents stay inside policy.
| Criterion | LangGuard | WitnessAI |
|---|---|---|
| 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 WitnessAI best at?
- Best-in-class agentless AI observability — network-level shadow-AI discovery, no endpoint agents
- Identity-based policy that attributes every agent action back to a human identity
- Strong inline data protection — PII/PCI/PHI tokenization before data reaches a model
- Real inline pre-execution blocking, with heavyweight backing and fast enterprise traction
Where does LangGuard pull ahead?
- Enforcement is intent-based and probabilistic (explicitly 'beyond regex'), not deterministic
- Runtime-only — discovery happens after the surface is live; no design-time mapping
- No Segregation-of-Duties and no named-approver routing
- Generic compliance framing (a PCI callout) — no SOX/GDPR/ISO 42001 control mapping
- Audit trails are rich but not claimed tamper-evident; CISO buyer, not GRC
Which should you choose?
WitnessAI is strong in its own category — The AI firewall. 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 WitnessAI operates in.
Request Free TrialCommon questions
What is the difference between LangGuard and WitnessAI?
LangGuard is categorised as Deterministic runtime AI governance control plane. WitnessAI is categorised as AI security & governance (AI firewall). 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 WitnessAI enforce Segregation of Duties?
WitnessAI 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. WitnessAI produces logs that need work before an auditor will accept them. 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 WitnessAI 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 · WitnessAI — official site
More comparisons
Find out what your agents can do —
before your auditor does.
LangGuard maps your complete agent action surface in minutes. Free for the first five managed agents. All Scopes (Finance, IT, Procurement, HR) included from day one. No policy writing required.
No credit card required · First 5 agents free · All LOB Scopes included · Enterprise ready