Cisco AI Defense vs Promptfoo
Side-by-side comparison of framework coverage, pricing, capabilities, and target customers. Last checked October 2026.
https://aicompliancevendors.com/compare/cisco-ai-defense-vs-promptfooCisco AI Defense
Cisco's AI security product, built on Robust Intelligence: AI discovery, supply chain scanning, red teaming and runtime guardrails for apps and agents
Cisco AI Defense is Cisco's security product for enterprise AI applications, models and agents. Cisco unveiled it on January 15, 2025 and said it would be available that March. It is built on Robust Intelligence, the AI security startup Cisco announced it would acquire on August 26, 2024 and finished acquiring on September 24, 2024; Dark Reading called Robust Intelligence the core component of AI Defense. The product is sold by Cisco Systems, Inc., which was incorporated in 1984 and is based in San Jose; this profile lists Cisco's founding year and headquarters, as the directory does for other big-company products. Cisco's May 2026 data sheet splits the product into four parts. AI Cloud Visibility discovers AI models, applications, connected data sources, MCP servers and agents, including assets in Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex and Azure AI Foundry. AI Supply Chain Risk Management scans model files, repositories and MCP servers and tools, and gives each asset a risk score. AI Model and Application Validation runs algorithmic red teaming with more than 200 attack techniques and threat subcategories. AI Runtime Protection applies safety, security and privacy guardrails, enforces MCP policies at runtime and protects agent behavior. Runtime checks can run at the network level through Cisco Multicloud Defense, through a gateway, or through an Inspection API. Hybrid deployments (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, GCP and on-premises AI PODs on OpenShift) keep sensitive data in the customer's environment. A separate AI Access module, for employee use of third-party AI apps, comes through Cisco Secure Access and needs its Advantage package. **Agent and MCP security** In February 2026 Cisco added an AI bill of materials, an MCP Catalog, multi-turn red teaming of models and agents, real-time agentic guardrails and an integration with NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails; the release gave no availability dates. In March 2026 it launched AI Defense: Explorer Edition, a self-service red-teaming tool Cisco offers at no upfront cost, and announced an Agent Runtime SDK for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Google Vertex Agent Builder, Azure AI Foundry and LangChain, plus DefenseClaw, an open-source agent security framework. **Frameworks** Cisco says AI Defense has mapped to NIST, OWASP and MITRE frameworks since launch. Its data sheet names the NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS and the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, and red-team reports also map to Cisco's own Integrated AI Security and Safety Framework. We found no documented support for the EU AI Act or ISO 42001. **Who it's for** Large enterprises that already use Cisco security products (Secure Access, Multicloud Defense, Splunk) and want AI discovery, red teaming and runtime guardrails from one vendor. Cisco doesn't publish prices.
Promptfoo
Build Secure AI Applications
Promptfoo is an open-source CLI and library for evaluating LLM prompts, models, RAGs, and agents through automated benchmarks and matrix comparisons, alongside red-teaming for security vulnerabilities like prompt injections, jailbreaks, PII leaks, and insecure tool use. It differentiates via developer-first local execution, CI/CD integration, and modular plugins covering 50+ attack types with community-driven threat intelligence. Targeted at developers and security teams in enterprises (127 Fortune 500 users), it supports self-hosting to avoid vendor lock-in. Enterprise adds collaboration, monitoring, SSO, and compliance dashboards. Acquired by OpenAI in March 2026 for integration into Frontier platform, remains open-source with SaaS/on-prem options.Promptfoo homepagePromptfoo docsPromptfoo pricing
What the data shows
We haven't published an editorial verdict on this pair yet. The comparison below is built from public vendor materials and our taxonomy — no editorialized ranking.
- Shared framework coverage: None documented in common.
- Only Cisco AI Defense covers: NIST AI RMF
- Shared capabilities: 1 of 14 listed.
Want our editorial take? Email the editors or read our methodology.
At a glance
| Attribute | Cisco AI Defense | Promptfoo |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1984 | 2024 |
| Headquarters | San Jose, United States | San Francisco, United States |
| Employees | Undisclosed | 11-50 |
| Funding | Product of Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO); no separate funding | $23.4M total (Series A, July 2025) |
| Pricing | No public prices. Cisco's AI Defense offer description (version 2.1, last modified September 23, 2026) names three packages: Advantage, Validation Essentials and Runtime Essentials; the data sheet shows supply chain scanning only in Advantage. Customers buy either per AI application or as committed usage: a prepaid balance drawn down by validation tests (600 in the first block, then 120 per block), runtime guardrails (measured in inspection tokens, in blocks of 1 billion), governed assets (blocks of 50) and endpoint agents. The runtime package assumes an aggregate limit of 10 million queries per AI application per year, and Enhanced Support is included. AWS Marketplace lists "Cisco AI Defense powered by Security Cloud Control" as SaaS with custom pricing by private offer. The Explorer Edition red-teaming tool is offered at no upfront cost. | Community (open-source): free with 10k red teaming probes/month; Enterprise/On-Prem: custom pricing via contact sales.Promptfoo pricing |
| Website | Visit site | Visit site |
Framework coverage
| Framework | Cisco AI Defense | Promptfoo |
|---|---|---|
| NIST AI RMF | limited | — |
Capabilities
| Capability | Cisco AI Defense | Promptfoo |
|---|---|---|
| AI Bill of Materials | ✓ | — |
| AI Discovery | ✓ | — |
| AI Guardrails | ✓ | — |
| AI Supply Chain Risk | ✓ | — |
| Agentic Red Teaming | ✓ | — |
| Data Leakage Prevention | ✓ | — |
| LLM Evaluation | — | ✓ |
| LLM Red Teaming | ✓ | ✓ |
| Model Validation | ✓ | — |
| Prompt Injection Defense | ✓ | — |
| Prompt Management | — | ✓ |
| Risk Scoring | ✓ | — |
| Runtime Enforcement | ✓ | — |
| Shadow AI Detection | ✓ | — |
Industries served
Cisco AI Defense
- None listed
Promptfoo
- Healthcare
- SaaS & Technology
Integrations
Cisco AI Defense
- Splunk
- ServiceNow
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Jenkins
- Amazon Bedrock
- Google Vertex AI
- LangChain
- NVIDIA
- AWS Marketplace
- Kubernetes
Promptfoo
- OpenAI API
- Anthropic API
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Jenkins
Frequently asked
What is the difference between Cisco AI Defense and Promptfoo?+
Cisco AI Defense is Cisco's AI security product, built on Robust Intelligence: AI discovery, supply chain scanning, red teaming and runtime guardrails for apps and agents; Promptfoo is Build Secure AI Applications. The full side-by-side covers framework coverage (0 shared, 1 unique to Cisco AI Defense, 0 unique to Promptfoo), pricing model, and capability overlap.
How do Cisco AI Defense and Promptfoo pricing compare?+
Cisco AI Defense: No public prices. Cisco's AI Defense offer description (version 2.1, last modified September 23, 2026) names three packages: Advantage, Validation Essentials and Runtime Essentials; the data sheet shows supply chain scanning only in Advantage. Customers buy either per AI application or as committed usage: a prepaid balance drawn down by validation tests (600 in the first block, then 120 per block), runtime guardrails (measured in inspection tokens, in blocks of 1 billion), governed assets (blocks of 50) and endpoint agents. The runtime package assumes an aggregate limit of 10
Which AI compliance frameworks do Cisco AI Defense and Promptfoo both support?+
There is no published overlap in framework coverage between Cisco AI Defense and Promptfoo based on each vendor's own materials.
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Editorial independence: This comparison is free and was not paid for by either vendor. See our methodology.