CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Asymptote Labs vs Knostic

Asymptote Labs sells a runtime data platform for AI agents. Knostic discovers and secures agents, coding assistants, and their supply chain, from MCP to skills and Code to Cowork. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security and AI governance. 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.

Change the companies

Up to four companies side by side.

  • Asymptote Labs
  • Knostic
Asymptote Labs vs Knostic: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
Asymptote LabsAsymptote Labs sells a runtime data platform for AI agents.asymptotelabs.aiKnosticKnostic discovers and secures agents, coding assistants, and their supply chain, from MCP to skills and Code to Cowork.knostic.ai
What it sells
  • Agent Beacon[2][3][4]An open-source telemetry layer for capturing and normalizing agent activity across every environment.
  • Asymptote Platform[4]A managed runtime data platform for operating AI agents across the organization.
  • Asymptote Guard[7][9]Controls that steer behavior, block actions inline, revoke access, contain sessions, or terminate agents.
  • Kirin[4][5][6][7][11]Runs on the endpoint inside supported agents. Denies or blocks unsafe agent actions.
  • AgentMesh[4][5][6][7][11]Rates every skill, server, and extension.
Categories
Headquarters
New York City, United States[2]Reston, United States[3]
Founded
Not stated on its pages2023[2][7]
Ownership and funding
Privately heldPrivately held[5]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • October 20, 2026Asymptote Labs announced an oversubscribed $5.5 million seed round led by Tower Research Ventures.[12]
  • June 12, 2026Knostic was recognized in the Cloud Security Alliance's first Agentic AI Security Innovator Market Map.[10]
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
Not written yetFrom its own pages, the company sells mainly to developers and teams that use AI coding agents and IDEs, with plans written for individual developers, growing teams, and engineering managers. Its pages describe developers and business users who install agents, extensions, MCP servers, and skills from open ecosystems. It lists an inventory export described as a register of AI systems for compliance and risk reporting. Its stated support covers macOS and Windows.
Last verified
October 21, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • AI model and agent security is the primary category of both Asymptote Labs and Knostic; both are also filed under AI governance.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.
  • Both are privately held.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Asymptote Labs is also filed under Workforce AI usage security.
  • Asymptote Labs lists Agent Beacon, Asymptote Platform and Asymptote Guard. Knostic lists Kirin and AgentMesh.
  • Asymptote Labs is headquartered in New York City, United States. Knostic is headquartered in Reston, United States.
  • Knostic was founded in 2023.

How they differ

CISO Tribune files both Asymptote Labs and Knostic under AI model and agent security as the primary category, and both also under AI governance. Asymptote Labs sells Agent Beacon, an open-source telemetry layer, plus Asymptote Platform, a managed runtime data platform for operating AI agents, and Asymptote Guard, which blocks actions inline, revokes access, contains sessions, or terminates agents. Knostic sells Kirin, which runs on the endpoint inside supported agents and denies or blocks unsafe agent actions, and AgentMesh, which rates every skill, server, and extension.

Agent Beacon captures activity across 20+ agent harnesses and forwards normalized telemetry to Splunk, Datadog, and CrowdStrike. Asymptote Platform includes managed ingest, retention, search, and analytics, and it can be self-hosted in AWS, Azure, or GCP. Knostic's AgentMesh scans MCP servers for prompt injection, malicious behaviour, and supply-chain risk, and every paid AgentMesh plan includes Kirin IDE security. Kirin deploys as an extension for Cursor and VS Code.

Asymptote Labs is headquartered in New York City and is privately held. On October 20, 2026, it announced an oversubscribed $5.5 million seed round led by Tower Research Ventures. Knostic is headquartered in Reston, was founded in 2023, and is privately held. On June 12, 2026, Knostic was recognized in the Cloud Security Alliance's first Agentic AI Security Innovator Market Map.

What it sells: Asymptote Labs

What Agent Beacon does[2][3][4]
Agent Beacon captures activity across 20+ agent harnesses including Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and OpenClaw. Agent Beacon forwards normalized telemetry to Splunk, Datadog, CrowdStrike, and other existing systems. Agent Beacon stores a portable local activity record in JSONL.
What Asymptote Platform does[4]
Asymptote Platform is a managed runtime data platform for operating AI agents across the organization. Asymptote Platform includes managed ingest, retention, search, and analytics. Asymptote Platform includes fleet-wide agent inventory and usage visibility.
What Asymptote Guard does[7][9]
Asymptote Guard steers behavior, blocks actions inline, revokes access, contains sessions, or terminates agents when needed. Asymptote Guard enforces model, budget, and session-level controls so teams can limit expensive usage, stop runaway workflows, and keep AI spend within policy.

What it sells: Knostic

What Kirin does[4][5][6][7][11]
Kirin runs on the endpoint inside supported agents and sees the tools, extensions, servers, and skills actually installed and used. Kirin denies a destructive command before it executes, tells the developer why, and logs a Prevented alert for the SOC. Kirin blocks the connection to an MCP server before it is established, after AgentMesh scans and rates the server. Kirin deploys as an extension for Cursor and VS Code.
What AgentMesh does[4][5][6][7][11]
AgentMesh rates every skill, server, and extension. AgentMesh scans MCP servers for prompt injection, malicious behaviour, and supply-chain risk. AgentMesh detects prompt injection in skills, MCP servers, and extensions before install. Every paid AgentMesh plan includes Kirin IDE security.

Questions about Asymptote Labs and Knostic

What do Asymptote Labs and Knostic sell?
Asymptote Labs sells Agent Beacon, Asymptote Platform and Asymptote Guard. Knostic sells Kirin and AgentMesh.
Are Asymptote Labs and Knostic in the same category?
Yes. AI model and agent security is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Where are Asymptote Labs and Knostic headquartered?
Asymptote Labs is headquartered in New York City, United States. Knostic is headquartered in Reston, United States.
When were Asymptote Labs and Knostic founded?
Knostic was founded in 2023.
Who owns Asymptote Labs and Knostic?
Asymptote Labs is privately held. Knostic is privately held.
Who are Asymptote Labs and Knostic sold to?
From its own pages, the company sells mainly to developers and teams that use AI coding agents and IDEs, with plans written for individual developers, growing teams, and engineering managers.
What have Asymptote Labs and Knostic announced recently?
October 20, 2026: Asymptote Labs announced an oversubscribed $5.5 million seed round led by Tower Research Ventures. June 12, 2026: Knostic was recognized in the Cloud Security Alliance's first Agentic AI Security Innovator Market Map.

About Asymptote Labs

Asymptote Labs sells a runtime data platform for AI agents. Asymptote gives teams one place to understand agent activity, investigate behavior, enforce controls, and analyze usage across tools and environments. Asymptote provides enterprise security and engineering teams a unified AI telemetry layer to see what agents are doing, govern how they operate, and continuously improve them over time.[3]

Asymptote says agents are spreading across tools and teams faster than organizations can track them. Asymptote says agents can access data and take actions without enough real-time oversight or control. Asymptote says teams can't see which agents are effective, failing, or wasting spend.[3]

Beacon is the open-source part of the offering. Asymptote is powered by Beacon, an open-source telemetry layer for capturing and normalizing agent activity across every environment. Agent Beacon is the open-source telemetry foundation, and the Asymptote platform builds on it with the managed control enterprises need to govern agent activity at scale. Agent Beacon captures activity across 20+ agent harnesses including Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and OpenClaw. Agent Beacon forwards normalized telemetry to Splunk, Datadog, CrowdStrike, and other existing systems. Agent Beacon stores a portable local activity record in JSONL. Beacon gives Security and IT teams local endpoint visibility into supported agent harnesses. Beacon normalizes captured activity into a stable endpoint event schema and writes JSONL for local inspection or customer-managed forwarding.[3][4][5]

Beacon is deployed to endpoints in several ways. Asymptote deploys Beacon across endpoints with Jamf, Fleet, and other MDM workflows. Beacon macOS deployment uses a signed and notarized package distributed through Jamf Pro, Fleet, or another MDM. On Linux, the Beacon collector runs as a systemd service. Beacon browser chat telemetry is limited to the Claude.ai and ChatGPT conversation streams captured by the optional Agent Beacon browser extension.[4][5][6][10]

Asymptote Platform is the managed layer. Asymptote Platform is a managed runtime data platform for operating AI agents across the organization. Asymptote Platform includes managed ingest, retention, search, and analytics. Asymptote Platform includes fleet-wide agent inventory and usage visibility. Asymptote captures prompts, tool calls, file edits, approvals, and runtime events. Asymptote inventories Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other agent harnesses. Asymptote normalizes activity into one consistent source of agent runtime data.[3][4]

Asymptote builds a complete inventory of agents and the environments they run in across an organization. Asymptote detects malicious and suspicious agent behavior in real time, with the full execution context needed to understand what happened. Asymptote surfaces threats like secret access, prompt injection, malicious tool use, suspicious commands, and data exfiltration across the complete agent session. Asymptote Guard steers behavior, blocks actions inline, revokes access, contains sessions, or terminates agents when needed. Asymptote adds visibility into the agent runtime, including the harness, prompt context, tool calls, resources accessed, and policy decisions behind each action.[1][7]

Asymptote correlates every action in an agent session so engineers can pinpoint failed commands, retries, tool errors, slow steps, and execution loops. Asymptote lets engineering teams understand which agents, models, and workflows developers rely on across the organization. Asymptote connects model spend to the teams, agents, users, and workflows that generated it. Asymptote adds runtime context, connecting AI spend to specific users, agents, repositories, sessions, and workflows. Asymptote Guard enforces model, budget, and session-level controls so teams can limit expensive usage, stop runaway workflows, and keep AI spend within policy.[8][9]

Asymptote can be self-hosted in AWS, Azure, or GCP for tighter control over infrastructure, networking, and data residency. Asymptote offers dedicated infrastructure for organizations that need tighter control over how agent data is stored and operated. Asymptote integrates with providers like Okta for secure access without additional passwords. Asymptote protects data with AES-256 for storage and backups and TLS 1.2+ for all data in transit. Asymptote enforces zero-day retention with providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic, ensuring customer data is not stored or used for training. Asymptote connects to the tools teams already use and extends with custom actions for workflows and systems unique to a business.[4][10][11]

Asymptote Labs on the record

Sources

Asymptote Labs full record

  1. [1]asymptotelabs.aiAsymptote Labs · asymptotelabs.ai · undated page, accessed October 21, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Asymptote labs raises 5 5m seed roundAsymptote Labs · asymptotelabs.ai · published October 20, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Asymptote: Real-time Visibility & Control for AI AgentsAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]PricingAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Security & IT Rollout Guide - AsymptoteAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Linux Install - AsymptoteAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Asymptote For Security & ITAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Asymptote For EngineeringAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Asymptote For AI FinOpsAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]SecurityAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]IntegrationsAsymptote Labs · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Asymptote Labs Raises $5.5M to Build Runtime Infrastructure for AI Agents | AsymptoteAsymptote Labs · published October 20, 2026 · Tier A

Knostic full record

  1. [1]Knostic - The control plane for agentic AI on the endpointKnostic · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Ending llm oversharing we raised 11 million to secure enterprise aiKnostic · knostic.ai · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Rsac 2025 innovation sandbox knostic reshaping the access control paradigm for enterprise ai securitySecurity Boulevard · securityboulevard.com · published April 25, 2025 · Tier B
  4. [4]Shadow AI Discovery & Governance - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Pricing - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]AI Agent Security - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]MCP Security Posture Management - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Terms of Service - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Knostic Knostic Trust Center | Powered by SafeBaseKnostic · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Knostic Featured Across Three Categories in CSA's Agentic AI Security Innovator Market MapKnostic · published June 12, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Prompt Injection Defense - KnosticKnostic · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

Spot a factual error? Request a correction.