CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

42Crunch vs Promptfoo

42Crunch sells a platform for governing the security of MCP servers, APIs and AI agents at enterprise scale. 42Crunch says it helps enterprises bring AI security under control. 42Crunch describes the job as discovering every MCP server that AI agents expose or consume, securing each one against attack, and assessing compliance with AI regulations and security frameworks. Promptfoo builds open-source tools for secure, reliable AI applications. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • 42Crunch
  • Promptfoo
42Crunch vs Promptfoo: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
42Crunch42Crunch sells a platform for governing the security of MCP servers, APIs and AI agents at enterprise scale. 42Crunch says it helps enterprises bring AI security under control. 42Crunch describes the job as discovering every MCP server that AI agents expose or consume, securing each one against attack, and assessing compliance with AI regulations and security frameworks.42crunch.comPromptfooPromptfoo builds open-source tools for secure, reliable AI applications.promptfoo.dev
What it sells
  • AI Regulatory Compliance[5]Evaluates every MCP server against regulatory and industry frameworks. Maps each finding to the control it breaches.
  • Red Teaming[2][4][5]Simulates real users to uncover application-specific vulnerabilities.
  • Evaluations[2][5]LLM evaluation of prompts and models that can run inside CI workflows.
Categories
Headquarters
London, United KingdomSan Francisco, United States[1][3]
Founded
Not stated on its pages2024[1][12]
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesOwned by OpenAI[12]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • September 23, 202642Crunch announced the general availability of its MCP Security Governance solution.[8]
  • January 19, 202642Crunch announced the availability of API Contract Generator in developer IDEs.[9]
  • March 9, 2026OpenAI agreed to buy Promptfoo, a startup helping businesses find and fix security issues in AI models during development.[13]
  • March 9, 2026OpenAI announced it has acquired Promptfoo, an AI security startup founded in 2024 to protect LLMs from adversarial attacks.[12]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, 42Crunch sells mainly to enterprise security and platform teams that govern MCP servers, APIs and AI agent security at scale. Its pricing is sized to the number of APIs, MCP servers and users in an organization. Individual developers who use its AI coding agent plugins have a separate self-serve pricing option.Not written yet
Last verified
November 9, 2026November 4, 2026

Where they overlap

  • 42Crunch and Promptfoo are both filed under AI model and agent security.

Where they differ, field by field

  • 42Crunch's primary category is API security; Promptfoo's is AI model and agent security.
  • 42Crunch is also filed under Dynamic application security testing. Promptfoo is also filed under AI firewalls and guardrails, Static application security testing and Breach simulation and automated pen-testing.
  • 42Crunch lists AI Regulatory Compliance. Promptfoo lists Red Teaming and Evaluations.
  • 42Crunch is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Promptfoo is headquartered in San Francisco, United States.
  • Promptfoo was founded in 2024.
  • Promptfoo is owned by OpenAI.

What it sells: 42Crunch

What AI Regulatory Compliance does[5]
42Crunch continuously evaluates every MCP server against the regulatory and industry frameworks an organization answers to. It maps each finding to the specific control it breaches. The page says compliance posture is computed by the control on every audit and every scan, not assembled from documents afterward. Its headline refers to real-time compliance reporting mapped to five frameworks.

What it sells: Promptfoo

What Red Teaming does[2][4][5]
Promptfoo creates thousands of context-aware attacks tailored to the customer's application. The open-source Community version includes up to 10k probes per month at no charge.
What Evaluations does[2][5]
Promptfoo's LLM evaluation can be integrated into a CircleCI pipeline. Promptfoo can be integrated with test frameworks like Jest and Vitest to evaluate prompts as part of existing testing and CI workflows. Promptfoo provides real-time alerts and automated evaluations to show LLM security status across all projects.

Questions about 42Crunch and Promptfoo

What do 42Crunch and Promptfoo sell?
42Crunch sells AI Regulatory Compliance. Promptfoo sells Red Teaming and Evaluations.
Are 42Crunch and Promptfoo in the same category?
They share AI model and agent security. 42Crunch's primary category is API security and Promptfoo's is AI model and agent security.
Where are 42Crunch and Promptfoo headquartered?
42Crunch is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Promptfoo is headquartered in San Francisco, United States.
When were 42Crunch and Promptfoo founded?
Promptfoo was founded in 2024.
Who owns 42Crunch and Promptfoo?
Promptfoo is owned by OpenAI.
Who are 42Crunch and Promptfoo sold to?
From its own pages, 42Crunch sells mainly to enterprise security and platform teams that govern MCP servers, APIs and AI agent security at scale.
What have 42Crunch and Promptfoo announced recently?
September 23, 2026: 42Crunch announced the general availability of its MCP Security Governance solution. March 9, 2026: OpenAI agreed to buy Promptfoo, a startup helping businesses find and fix security issues in AI models during development.

About 42Crunch

42Crunch sells a platform for governing the security of MCP servers, APIs and AI agents at enterprise scale. 42Crunch says it helps enterprises bring AI security under control. 42Crunch describes the job as discovering every MCP server that AI agents expose or consume, securing each one against attack, and assessing compliance with AI regulations and security frameworks.[4][10]

42Crunch says AI coding agents ship MCP servers faster than any manual inventory process can track. 42Crunch discovers every MCP server across an organization automatically, both sanctioned and shadow alike, audits each one and ranks it by risk. 42Crunch says every request from an AI agent passes through the MCP server before it ever reaches an enterprise system or the API behind it. 42Crunch also says an MCP tool is only as secure as the API it wraps.[4]

42Crunch says its deterministic contract-driven model applies equally to the MCP and API layer. Every MCP server and every API behind it gets a machine-readable contract of its declared surface. In the 42Crunch model, discovery writes the contract, testing measures against it, and runtime enforces it. 42Crunch says the model it uses to secure APIs now extends to the MCP servers AI agents call and expose.[4][6]

On the MCP side, 42Crunch sweeps registries, gateways and repos to surface the shadow servers agents are already calling, then reads each server's advertised tools, resources and prompts and emits a contract. Every finding carries severity, evidence and the fix. 42Crunch fails the build when a server leaves its approved contract, then keeps watching the one in production for new tools, rewritten descriptions and widened permissions.[4]

Tests are generated from the OpenAPI definition and run in the pipeline, covering broken object-level authorization, broken auth, mass assignment and unrestricted resource consumption. All AI generated code is automatically fixed by 42Crunch. For runtime, 42Crunch describes a positive-security firewall assembled from the contract itself, where unknown paths, extra parameters, malformed payloads and over-sharing responses are rejected before they reach the backend.[4]

For compliance, 42Crunch says the EU AI Act, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, CSA AICM and OWASP are all tagged automatically on every audit. A security review doubles as compliance evidence without extra work. Each finding arrives already tied to the control it answers, so the audit trail for an AI estate is a by-product of the scan. 42Crunch computes compliance posture control by control on every audit and every scan, not assembled from documents afterward. Each audit and scan checks a server against all applicable frameworks at the same time.[4][5][11]

A server below the threshold does not reach production.[12]

42Crunch is built for enterprise security and platform teams governing MCP servers, APIs and AI agent security at scale. 42Crunch pairs API Audit, Scan and Protection with MCP Contract, Audit, Scan and Protect on one platform, with one set of SQG policies and one CI/CD pattern. Pricing includes a dedicated encrypted tenant, SSO and a dedicated support manager, sized to the number of APIs, MCP servers and users. Individual developers who use the 42Crunch AI coding agent plugins have a self-serve pricing option.[2][3][4][5][6][7][10][12]

42Crunch on the record

Sources

42Crunch full record

  1. [1]42crunch criticalblue announce partnership42Crunch · 42crunch.com · published November 21, 2018 · Tier A
  2. [2]42crunch.com42Crunch · 42crunch.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]42crunch publishes state of api security 202642Crunch · 42crunch.com · published February 11, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]42Crunch — AI Security Platform for MCP42Crunch · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]AI Regulatory Compliance | 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Management der MCP-Server-Sicherheitslage | 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]About 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]42Crunch Launches MCP Security Governance, Giving Enterprises Detailed AI Exposure Management and Compliance with AI Regulatory Frameworks42Crunch · published September 23, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]42Crunch Launches API Contract Generator in Developer IDEs42Crunch · published January 19, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Pricing | 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]KI-Regulierungskonformität | 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Management der MCP-Server-Sicherheitslage | 42Crunch42Crunch · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A

Promptfoo full record

  1. [1]PressPromptfoo · promptfoo.dev · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]promptfoo.devPromptfoo · promptfoo.dev · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]About Promptfoo | AI Security Experts | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Build Secure AI Applications | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Pricing | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Setting up Promptfoo with CircleCI | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Testing prompts with Jest and Vitest | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Finding LLM Jailbreaks with Burp Suite | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]SharePoint Integration | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Langfuse integration | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]AI Security for Real Estate | PromptfooPromptfoo · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]OpenAI acquires Promptfoo to secure its AI agents | TechCrunchTechCrunch · published March 9, 2026 · Tier B
  13. [13]OpenAI Buying AI Security Startup Promptfoo to Safeguard AI Agents - BloombergBloomberg · published March 9, 2026 · Tier B

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