Prova vs Guardrails AI
Guardrails validates the output you wrote a rule for. Prova enforces policy at the gateway and signs the record of every decision.
BOOK A CALLGuardrails AI is an open-source framework for validating and structuring LLM outputs: you compose validators (schema, regex, custom) and run them in your application. Prova is the AI control plane. It runs a built-in policy library and inline detectors at the gateway, signs every decision as an Ed25519 receipt, and gives every agent run a pass / flag / needs-human verdict, with no validators to author.
| Feature | Prova | Guardrails AI |
|---|---|---|
| Structured output + schema validation | No | Yes |
| Built-in policy library, no rule authoring | 19 policies | you write validators |
| Centralized gateway enforcement (block before the model call) | Yes | No |
| Ed25519-signed receipts, verifiable offline | Yes | No |
| Inline detectors (loops, injection, PII, bias, groundedness) | Yes | partial |
| Per-run health verdict (pass / flag / needs-human) | Yes | No |
| Runtime autonomy boundaries (tools, steps, budget, scopes) | Yes | No |
| EU AI Act / FDA / SEC / HIPAA evidence export | Yes | No |
| Fully open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hosted / air-gapped | Yes | Yes |
Where Prova is different
Enforce centrally, not per-app
Guardrails validators live in each application's code, and you maintain them everywhere. Prova enforces one policy set at the gateway for every app and agent, and the check runs before the model call, not only on the output that came back.
The signed receipt
Guardrails produces pass/fail in your logs. Prova produces an Ed25519-signed receipt of every decision, verifiable offline against a published key. That is the artifact an auditor asks for.
A verdict on the whole run
Guardrails checks one output against one validator. Prova scores the entire agent run (loops, cost blowups, repeated tool calls) and routes it pass / flag / needs-human.
Use Guardrails AI for structured output and schema validation inside your app. Use Prova for centralized gateway enforcement, signed receipts, and a run-level verdict across every framework. They pair: Guardrails shapes one output, Prova governs the system.