When should you choose HiddenLayer?

Model files should be scanned for malware and tampering, with an AIBOM. An API and enterprise security controls are requirements. Agent sessions should be replayable turn by turn. Graded by Agentic Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials. No vendor pays for placement.

When should you choose Pillar Security?

Attack paths across tools, prompts and data are the main concern. Black box testing matters alongside multi turn attacks. The platform must run in your own VPC. Graded by Agentic Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials. No vendor pays for placement.

How much do HiddenLayer and Pillar Security cost?

HiddenLayer: Contact sales; no prices are published.. Pillar Security: Contact sales; no prices published. Demo on request.. Graded by Agentic Index against the same capability axes from each vendor's own published materials. No vendor pays for placement.

Agentic Index

HiddenLayer vs Pillar Security (2026)

Both vendors last verified September 28, 2026

HiddenLayer and Pillar Security both discover, test and protect the customer's AI, and both can run in the customer's own environment. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.

HiddenLayer adds model supply chain scanning, which flags malware and tampering in model files and produces an AIBOM from a CLI or a GitHub Action, and replays agent sessions turn by turn, and it runs as SaaS or self hosted. Pillar maps exploitable paths across tools, prompts and data with RedGraph, runs multi turn and black box attacks, logs every tool call and deploys in the customer's VPC. Neither publishes a price. Choose HiddenLayer when model files and the AI supply chain are in scope, and Pillar for attack path mapping across agent tools.

On the Agentic Index AI SOC ranking, neither HiddenLayer nor Pillar Security clears the bar, which asks for all five investigation loop capabilities documented in full. Neither documents workflow orchestration in full, nor human oversight and guardrails. 25 of the 86 vendors in the lane clear it. See the AI SOC ranking

On the Agentic Index agent infrastructure ranking, neither HiddenLayer nor Pillar Security clears the bar, which asks for all five production contract capabilities documented in full. HiddenLayer does not document model flexibility and routing in full; Pillar Security does not document security and identity governance in full, nor model flexibility and routing. 33 of the 186 vendors in the lane clear it. See the agent infrastructure ranking

This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. HiddenLayer and Pillar 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

At a glance

HiddenLayer

Category: Security / SOC agent
Entry price: Contact sales; no prices are published.
Free or trial: Not published
Pricing confidence: contact only

Pillar Security

Category: Security / SOC agent
Entry price: Contact sales; no prices published. Demo on request.
Free or trial: Not published
Pricing confidence: contact only

Keep exploring

Choose HiddenLayer if

Model files should be scanned for malware and tampering, with an AIBOM.
An API and enterprise security controls are requirements.
Agent sessions should be replayable turn by turn.

Choose Pillar Security if

Attack paths across tools, prompts and data are the main concern.
Black box testing matters alongside multi turn attacks.
The platform must run in your own VPC.

Feature	H HiddenLayer	P Pillar Security
Action & orchestration
Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools.
HiddenLayerIntegrations & Tool Calling Prebuilt integrations reach CI/CD, MLOps, data pipelines and SIEM/SOAR, with integrations for Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk and a GitHub Action, and the runtime plugs into agent gateways and execution frameworks to block or redact agent traffic as it passes through. Named frameworks and gateways include LangChain, LiteLLM, the OpenAI and AWS Strands guardrails SDKs, Azure API Management and the TrueFoundry AI Gateway, and the JFrog Artifactory integration blocks malicious model downloads. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai integrationsread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityIntegrations & Tool Calling Discovery connects across the customer's environment to inventory agents and models along with MCP servers and tools. Runtime guardrails block and redact agent traffic, and telemetry streams to SIEM platforms. Discovery reaches code repositories, cloud infrastructure, AI platforms and MCP servers, and the guardrails plug into AI gateways such as LiteLLM, Kong, TrueFoundry and Agent Router. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform and /platform/runtime-guardrailsread 2026-10-05
Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps.
HiddenLayerWorkflow Orchestration HiddenLayer runs a fixed product pipeline across four modules (discovery, supply chain scanning, attack simulation, runtime detection and response). It does not orchestrate the customer's agents, and customers do not build flows in it. The platform is agentless and model agnostic and needs no training data. SourceHiddenLayer, hiddenlayer.com/platformread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityWorkflow Orchestration The product runs a fixed loop of discovery, red teaming and runtime guardrails, with governance on top and findings that tune the guardrails. Pillar does not orchestrate the customer's agents or offer a flow the customer builds. The loop covers coding agents, MCP servers and skill marketplaces. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform and pillar.securityread 2026-10-05
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.
HiddenLayerTriggers & Channel Coverage Runtime detection fires on every prompt, tool call and response passing the runtime proxy or agent gateway, and supply chain scans run in CI/CD through the GitHub Action, so neither waits for a person to start it. Model scans also run from Azure DevOps, Jenkins and JFrog Artifactory, and runtime detections can go out by webhook as they happen. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai agentic sessions and integrationsread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityTriggers & Channel Coverage Runtime guardrails act on every prompt and response, and on retrieved content and tool invocations, as they happen. Behavioral monitoring flags when an agent strays from its purpose, so work starts without anyone launching it. The guardrails judge intent rather than only matching patterns, blocking prompt injection, jailbreaks and tool manipulation as they happen. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform/runtime-guardrailsread 2026-10-05
Knowledge & context
Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers.
HiddenLayerKnowledge Grounding & RAG AI Discovery builds an inventory of the customer's AI applications, models and assets, and supply chain scanning produces an AIBOM for each model, a map of the customer's AI assets. There is no knowledge store for agents to draw on. Discovery covers Bedrock, Bedrock Agents and SageMaker on AWS, Databricks Unity Catalog, and Azure AI Foundry and Azure ML. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai and integrationsread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityKnowledge Grounding & RAG A full inventory covers the customer's agents and models along with MCP servers and tools, with agent permissions mapped to data sources, and RedGraph maps how tools, prompts and data combine. Together they chart the customer's AI estate, including shadow AI, and Pillar describes no retrieval structure its agents draw on. Runtime guardrails also trace PII and secrets from source to destination. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platformread 2026-10-05
Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer.
HiddenLayerMemory & State Persistence There is no memory for the customer's agents or for an agent of HiddenLayer's own. The inventory and AIBOM map the customer's AI assets, and session replay records past sessions. Neither is memory that an agent reads. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.airead 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityMemory & State Persistence There is no memory for the customer's agents. The asset map and the interaction logs are records about the agents, not memory the agents use. Sourcepillar.security/platformread 2026-09-28
Control & trust
Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls.
HiddenLayerHuman Oversight & Guardrails Agentic runtime policies assign each detection rule an action of Block, Detect or Redact on the customer's agent sessions. The customer sets these policies, and there is no step that asks a person to approve an agent action before it goes through. A rule only describes a condition, the policy decides what happens, and a policy takes effect once a project references it. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai agentic policyread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityHuman Oversight & Guardrails Runtime guardrails block malicious instructions and interactions that break data handling rules, and they redact sensitive content. Approved model lists and MCP allowlists set further limits. The customer sets these limits, and Pillar describes no step that asks a person to approve before an agent action goes through. Blocking follows configurable policies for data handling and data sovereignty. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform/runtime-guardrails and /platformread 2026-10-05
Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy.
HiddenLayerSecurity, Identity & Governance HiddenLayer reports SOC 2 Type II covering security, availability and confidentiality, and offers single sign-on, user management and a console audit log. Runtime redaction can strip entity types such as US Social Security numbers, email addresses and phone numbers from output. SourceHiddenLayer, hiddenlayer.com/security and docs.hiddenlayer.ai agentic policyread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecuritySecurity, Identity & Governance Pillar reports a SOC 2 Type II audit, and its trust center is at trust.pillar.security. Pillar names no SSO, role model or audit surface for people using the Pillar console. SourcePillar Security, pillar.securityread 2026-10-05
Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior.
HiddenLayerObservability & Auditability Agentic Sessions reconstruct each of the customer's agent sessions as "a clean, ordered, turn-by-turn replay: the user prompts, the model's tool calls and results, and the final answers, with any blocked or redacted moments marked in place", which records each tool call the customer's agents make. Runtime detections flow to Microsoft Sentinel through Log Analytics, to Splunk, or to any application by webhook. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai agentic sessions and integrationsread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityObservability & Auditability Runtime guardrails log every prompt, response and tool call with metadata and timestamps for the customer's agents, along with results, and stream telemetry to SIEM, giving a record of every tool call. Audit logs, compliance reports and policy lifecycle management sit under governance. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform/runtime-guardrails and /platformread 2026-10-05
Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting.
HiddenLayerDeployment & Data Residency Self-hosted installation of the platform is available (embedded cluster or Helm), and AI Runtime Security is deployed by Helm in the customer's environment, alongside the AWS-hosted SaaS. HiddenLayer says it deploys in minutes without exposing model weights, prompts or customer data. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai self hosted Helm install and hiddenlayer.com/platformread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityDeployment & Data Residency Customers can deploy Pillar in their own VPC with their own data and models, so it can run in the customer's own environment. Pillar is offered as cloud, self hosted or hybrid. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security and /platformread 2026-10-05
Solution readiness
Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value.
HiddenLayerPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Prebuilt detection rules and red team prompt sets ship with the platform, though the catalog has no name and there are no prebuilt agents. The detection rules cover prompt injection, PII, code, suspicious URLs and exfiltration hosts, oversized inputs, guardrail refusals and message language. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai attack simulation and agentic policyread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Prebuilt guardrails ship, along with compliance reports for GDPR and CCPA and the published SAIL framework, now in version 2.0, but Pillar does not name them as a catalog and offers no prebuilt agents. The platform has five modules. They are discovery and posture, red teaming, runtime guardrails, governance and compliance, and an agentic endpoint module. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platformread 2026-10-05
Platform extensibility
Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys.
HiddenLayerModel Flexibility & Routing HiddenLayer secures and tests models instead of serving or routing them. The runtime proxy accepts several LLM API formats so it can sit in front of different providers, but it does not pick or route models. From the console, red team tests can run against a range of foundation model providers. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai API format support and attack simulationread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityModel Flexibility & Routing Pillar enforces approved model lists but offers no model choice or routing of its own. Its guardrails mask PII, PHI, secrets and credentials before they reach the models. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform and /platform/runtime-guardrailsread 2026-10-05
APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems.
HiddenLayerAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility HiddenLayer offers a Python SDK, API keys and API routes, and an AI Supply Chain Security CLI, and attack simulations can be run via API. There are Java and TypeScript SDKs as well. A runtime policy applies to a project, and an evaluation call names that project in a header. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai Python SDK, integrations and agentic policyread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility No public API, SDK or MCP server is published for building on Pillar. MCP allowlists are something the product enforces, not a way to build on it. AI gateways can call the runtime guardrails through an API, but Pillar publishes no reference for it. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platform and /platform/runtime-guardrailsread 2026-10-05
Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment.
HiddenLayerTesting, Debugging & Optimization Red teaming covers the customer's own deployed AI applications. AI Attack Simulation runs red team and system prompt evaluations via API against any application reachable from the internet, reports success rates, failure reasons and interactions, and can run in the release pipeline. System prompt evaluations also suggest improved prompts, and results become baselines that teams track and compare over time. The application under test needs a public interface. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai attack simulationread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityTesting, Debugging & Optimization Adversarial attacks over many turns target the customer's AI agents and workflows, including black box attacks on production systems, with full attack transcripts and reproduction steps, and assessments run continuously. RedGraph maps the surfaces that can be exploited in the customer's environment. This is red teaming of the agents the customer has deployed. RedGraph builds attack graphs specific to the environment, showing lateral movement and tool chaining paths that other security tools miss. SourcePillar Security, pillar.security/platformread 2026-10-05
Specialist automation
Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone.
HiddenLayerBrowser & Computer Use There is no browser or computer use. HiddenLayer's products inspect prompts, tool calls and model files instead of operating applications themselves. SourceHiddenLayer, docs.hiddenlayer.ai and hiddenlayer.com/platformread 2026-10-05
Pillar SecurityBrowser & Computer Use Pillar describes no browser or computer use by its own agents. It secures coding agents against prompt injection, data exfiltration, unauthorized actions, excessive permissions and malicious code execution. SourcePillar Security, pillar.securityread 2026-10-05

Pricing snapshot

Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.

Pricing	H HiddenLayer	P Pillar Security
Entry price Lowest public entry point	Contact sales; no prices are published.	Contact sales; no prices published. Demo on request.
Pricing confidence How public the numbers are	Contact only	Contact only
Billing Primary billing axis	Inference, not stated by the vendor: modules adopted and the scope of models, applications and agents covered.	Inference, not stated by the vendor: scope of AI assets, agents and applications secured.
Variable cost Workload / overage exposure	Medium variable cost	Medium variable cost
Free tier / trial Try before you buy	No free tier	No free tier
Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call	Sales call	Sales call
Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked	Sep 28, 2026	Sep 28, 2026

Product updates

Newest first, each linked to its source.

HiddenLayer

October 27, 2026 · Integrations

Runtime detections for AI agents from HiddenLayer now arrive in Splunk through its HTTP Event Collector and in Microsoft Sentinel through a Log Analytics table, and model scan results reach Splunk the same way.
Source
October 14, 2026 · Security / enterprise

AI Supply Chain Security 26.10.0 lets a tenant add multiple rules to its Supply Chain policy.
Source

All 2 HiddenLayer updates →

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HiddenLayer vs Pillar Security (2026)

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HiddenLayer

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