Agentic Index
Assail vs Terra Security (2026)
Both vendors last verified
Assail and Terra Security both run continuous, agent led offensive testing, and they differ on who oversees the agents. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Assail's Ares platform sends twelve Sidewinder agents to discover, chain and exploit vulnerabilities across APIs, web and mobile apps, driving a real browser on Assail's own offensive models, managed in the major clouds or on premises. Terra runs an AI agent swarm with human pentesters on the loop across applications, networks and the customer's own AI systems, logs every test action and signs its reports. Neither has a public price. Choose Assail for browser driven testing that can run on premises. Choose Terra for testing overseen by human pentesters.
On the Agentic Index AI SOC ranking, neither Assail nor Terra Security clears the bar, which asks for all five investigation loop capabilities documented in full. Assail documents two of the five in full; Terra Security does not document integrations and tool calling in full, nor human oversight and guardrails. 25 of the 86 vendors in the lane clear it. See the AI SOC ranking
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Assail and Terra Security are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,084 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Assail if
- Testing should drive a real browser across web and mobile apps.
- The platform must run on premises or in your cloud.
- You want testing on the vendor's own offensive models.
Choose Terra Security if
- Human pentesters should oversee the agent swarm.
- Your own AI systems and networks are in scope.
- Signed reports matter for audit.
| Feature | A Assail |
T Terra Security |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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AssailIntegrations & Tool Calling Ares acts on the applications under test. It operates several authenticated identities through a real browser and reaches internal services through the Ares Docker Agent's tunnel. There are no connectors to ticketing, chat, CI/CD or other outside systems. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityIntegrations & Tool Calling The agent swarm acts against the customer's web apps and APIs, AI systems and networks, adapting to authentication flows. Internal network testing traces lateral movement and privilege escalation, and external testing maps services and misconfigurations. Terra names no integration catalog, no custom tool support and no action framework into ticketing, CI/CD or a SIEM. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.securityread 2026-10-06 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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AssailWorkflow Orchestration "A fleet of twelve specialized, autonomous agents reasons against a living attack-surface knowledge graph" and rewrites the plan as evidence arrives, with a mission planning agent directing the others. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityWorkflow Orchestration "Terra's agent swarm" handles discovery, execution and attack chain reasoning at scale across web and internal applications, external and internal networks and AI systems. TORCH, the Terra Offensive Research Collaboration Hub, lets pentesters work with the agents directly, so several agents and people share the work. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.securityread 2026-10-06 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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AssailTriggers & Channel Coverage Ares continuously hunts across the customer's API, web and mobile estate, by Assail's account. There is no event, schedule, webhook or CI/CD hook that starts an engagement. Sourceassailai.comread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityTriggers & Channel Coverage Continuous monitoring picks up meaningful changes in production and tests them, with new findings "within hours of a code change", so a change starts the work on its own. The initial baseline typically surfaces validated findings within one to two weeks. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platformread 2026-10-06 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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AssailKnowledge Grounding & RAG The agents reason against "a living attack-surface knowledge graph" that "remembers every probe, observation, and proven finding". The graph covers the customer's own targets and stays current. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityKnowledge Grounding & RAG Continuous monitoring recognizes meaningful changes in the customer's production environment, and the swarm adapts to app workflows, authentication flows and data handling, keeping a map of the estate across cycles. Findings are verified and prioritized by business context. Terra names no knowledge store the agents retrieve from. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.security/llmsread 2026-10-06 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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AssailMemory & State Persistence The attack surface knowledge graph remembers probes and findings, and after self review the agents rewrite their own skills. There is no other agent memory, and no scope or lifetime is given for what the agents keep. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityMemory & State Persistence The environment state Terra keeps to spot changes works as a map of the customer's estate. Terra names no agent memory and does not say what it would keep or for how long. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platformread 2026-10-06 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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AssailHuman Oversight & Guardrails The Docker agent enforces customer approved network ranges twice and logs every refusal. Assail calls its live fire "safe-by-design" and speaks of "progressive autonomy" without saying what either involves. There is no approval step before an exploit runs. Sourceassailai.com/press-releases/pr-20260113read 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityHuman Oversight & Guardrails Terra is "built as a human-on-the-loop platform". Agents handle discovery, execution and reasoning about attack chains, while a human pentester stays on the loop through TORCH for oversight and judgment at critical decision points. A person supervises and keeps the key decisions, but Terra names no approval step before an agent action goes through. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platformread 2026-10-06 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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AssailSecurity, Identity & Governance The product at ares.assailai.com sits behind registration. Assail names no attestation, SSO or role model, and it has no trust page. Sourceassailai.comread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecuritySecurity, Identity & Governance By Terra's account it holds SOC 2 Type II certification and CREST membership, and a DPA is available. It names no SSO, role model or other access controls for its own platform. SourceTerra Security, terra.security and terra.security/llmsread 2026-10-06 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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AssailObservability & Auditability Every finding ships "with a complete, replayable record of how it was found, from the agent's reasoning transcript to the live network trace". Each finding also carries the request sent, the response and how it was exploited. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityObservability & Auditability "Every test action is logged and defensible", and execution records stay under human control, so each action the agents take is on record. Reports come ready for audit, signed by certified pentesters, and are accepted for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and PCI DSS work. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.security/llmsread 2026-10-06 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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AssailDeployment & Data Residency Customers "can run Ares... as a managed deployment on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, or fully on-premises through our new Campaign Agent" for sovereign and air gapped environments. The Ares Docker Agent runs inside the customer network with outbound only connections. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityDeployment & Data Residency The agents test the customer's live production environments with production safe execution, and Terra publishes a DPA and an SLA. For the platform itself, Terra names no hosting region, customer environment or data residency option. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/llmsread 2026-10-06 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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AssailPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Sidewinder runs "twelve specialized, autonomous agents", including agents specialized for APIs, mobile and web. The individual agents and their jobs are not named. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs One agent swarm runs across four modules, which are web and internal applications, external networks, internal networks and AI red teaming. All four are part of one platform, not separate products, and the agents themselves are unnamed. Terra says the platform cuts testing timelines from four to six weeks down to two to four hours. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.securityread 2026-10-06 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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AssailModel Flexibility & Routing Ares runs on Assail's own models, the 14 billion parameter Dagger and then a fine tuned 31 billion parameter model for Sidewinder, and customers cannot choose another provider. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityModel Flexibility & Routing The model provider is not named, and Terra names no way for customers to choose or route models. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platformread 2026-10-06 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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AssailAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility There is no public API, SDK or MCP server. The Ares Docker Agent is a deployment component, configured by environment variables and a dashboard token, and offers no way to build on the platform. It now ships under a proprietary license tied to an Ares subscription. Sourcegithub.com/assailai/ares-agentread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility There is no published developer documentation, and Terra names no API, SDK or MCP server for building on the platform. TORCH, where human testers work with the agents, is a workflow inside the platform, not an API. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/llmsread 2026-10-06 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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AssailTesting, Debugging & Optimization Sidewinder "autonomously reviews its operations to find false positives, missed steps, or misclassified findings, instantly rewriting its own skills" and runs repair cycles. Every finding is independently verified and deduplicated before it ships. The Javelin loop pits attacking and defending agents against each other. Customers get no harness or scored test set of their own. Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityTesting, Debugging & Optimization Terra's AI red teaming tests the customer's "AI systems, Copilots, agents, and LLM integrations against threats that prompt fuzzing cannot reach", continuously, with logged actions and signed reports, covering AI applications, LLMs and agent behavior. Only validated findings are reported, so the team can secure the most critical systems first. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platform and terra.securityread 2026-10-06 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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AssailBrowser & Computer Use Sidewinder drives "a real browser with vision-grounded analysis to crawl single-page apps, defeat simple challenges, and operate multiple authenticated identities at once". Sourceprnewswire.com/news-releases/assail-launches-sidewinder-purpose-built-and-fine-tuned-exploitation-platform-capable-of-recursive-self-healing-302819438.htmlread 2026-09-28 |
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Terra SecurityBrowser & Computer Use The agents work through web application workflows and authentication flows as part of testing, and Terra names no browser or computer control offered to the customer as a capability of its own. SourceTerra Security, terra.security/terra-platformread 2026-10-06 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | A Assail |
T Terra Security |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Contact sales | Contact sales; no prices published. Demo on request. |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Contact only | Contact only |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
— | Inference, not stated by the vendor: scale and complexity of the applications, networks and AI systems under continuous testing. |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | Medium variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
No free tier
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No free tier
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Sales call | Sales call |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
Product updates
Newest first, each linked to its source.
Assail
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· Agent capability
Assail released Sidewinder, a complete version 2 redesign of its Ares offensive security platform powered by a new 31 billion-parameter model.
Source
Terra Security
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· Agent capability
The Misconfiguration Researcher is a new capability in Terra's automated pentesting that starts from the technologies actually present in an application's stack rather than a fixed list of known bad settings.
Source -
· Agent capability
Feature Analysis is now generally available to all Terra customers in Terra Platform and TORCH.
Source -
· Agent capability
Terra added Validation Hub, which takes in vulnerabilities from scanners, bug bounty reports and other outside sources and has its agents try to exploit each one.
Source
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