CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Impart Security vs Knostic

Impart Security sells programmable, deterministic Layer 7 protection across AI, applications and APIs. 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. 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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Up to four companies side by side.

  • Impart Security
  • Knostic
Impart Security vs Knostic: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
Impart SecurityImpart Security sells programmable, deterministic Layer 7 protection across AI, applications and APIs.impart.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 Protection[3][10]Enforces application-specific policies on agent traffic and tool interactions.
  • API Security[5][8][10]Enforces controls based on how APIs behave across requests and sessions.
  • Runtime Defense Harness[10]Uses AI-assisted investigation to develop targeted virtual patches.
  • 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
San Francisco, United StatesReston, 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
Not stated on its pages
  • 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
Impart describes protection that runs inside an organisation's existing ingress. The stated coverage spans AI, applications and APIs. Impart also describes integrating its protection into existing ingress and egress infrastructure, with policies and runtime state synchronized across distributed environments.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. 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
September 27, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Impart Security and Knostic are both filed under AI model and agent security.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.
  • Both are privately held.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Impart Security's primary category is AI firewalls and guardrails; Knostic's is AI model and agent security.
  • Impart Security is also filed under Bot and abuse management. Knostic is also filed under AI governance.
  • Impart Security lists Agent Protection, API Security and Runtime Defense Harness. Knostic lists Kirin and AgentMesh.
  • Impart Security is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Knostic is headquartered in Reston, United States.
  • Knostic was founded in 2023.

What it sells: Impart Security

What Agent Protection does[3][10]
Agent Protection enforces application-specific policies on agent traffic and tool interactions, using runtime context to restrict unauthorized actions and access. Agent Protection runs on the same ingress-layer enforcement engine that inspects the full attack surface.
What API Security does[5][8][10]
API Security enforces controls based on how APIs behave across requests and sessions, not just individual request signatures. Impart applies inline, sequence-aware enforcement to every API call. API Security detects and blocks shadow APIs as they are accessed. API Security prevents sensitive data (PII) from leaving the system.
What Runtime Defense Harness does[10]
Runtime Defense Harness uses AI-assisted investigation to develop targeted virtual patches and deploy protection through the same engine already protecting the applications. Targeted virtual patches are generated and tested against runtime traffic, with Policy as Code validated before deployment. AI-generated virtual patches are informed by runtime behavior, tested against live traffic and enforced through programmable Layer 7 controls.

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 Impart Security and Knostic

What do Impart Security and Knostic sell?
Impart Security sells Agent Protection, API Security and Runtime Defense Harness. Knostic sells Kirin and AgentMesh.
Are Impart Security and Knostic in the same category?
They share AI model and agent security. Impart Security's primary category is AI firewalls and guardrails and Knostic's is AI model and agent security.
Where are Impart Security and Knostic headquartered?
Impart Security is headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Knostic is headquartered in Reston, United States.
When were Impart Security and Knostic founded?
Knostic was founded in 2023.
Who owns Impart Security and Knostic?
Impart Security is privately held. Knostic is privately held.
Who are Impart Security and Knostic sold to?
Impart describes protection that runs inside an organisation's existing ingress. 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 Impart Security and Knostic announced recently?
June 12, 2026: Knostic was recognized in the Cloud Security Alliance's first Agentic AI Security Innovator Market Map.

About Impart Security

Impart Security sells programmable, deterministic Layer 7 protection across AI, applications and APIs. Impart enforces security policies directly in the application traffic path. Impart describes one programmable engine that unifies OWASP coverage, stateful behavioral analysis and custom security logic to block threats inline. Impart defines runtime enforcement as the ability to detect and block a threat at the moment the request is made, inline in the path of live traffic. Impart integrates programmable Layer 7 protection into existing ingress and egress infrastructure, enforces deterministic controls locally, and synchronizes policies and runtime state across distributed environments.[4][6][9][10]

For bots, Impart blocks credential stuffing, scraping and AI-driven automation with stateful controls that evaluate request patterns and session behavior. For agents, Impart enforces application-specific policies on agent traffic and tool interactions, using runtime context to restrict unauthorized actions and access. Impart detects and blocks shadow APIs as they are accessed. Impart's API enforcement prevents sensitive data (PII) from leaving the system.[8][10]

Impart sits between the agent and the customer's systems, enforcing security before any action executes. Agent protection runs on the same ingress-layer enforcement engine that inspects the full attack surface. Impart evaluates each prompt using session history, identity, prior model interactions and the chain of tool calls behind it. Impart's LLM enforcement sits inline between the caller and the model and runs before the prompt reaches inference. Impart builds a live catalog of every MCP server reaching the environment, sanctioned or not, and every tool exposed by each one. Policy-as-code in Impart applies the same way to AI clients, CLI users, web apps and direct API callers.[3][5][6][8]

Runtime Defense Harness uses AI-assisted investigation to develop targeted virtual patches and deploy protection through the same engine already protecting the applications. Impart generates and tests targeted virtual patches against runtime traffic, validating Policy as Code before deployment. Impart deploys custom virtual patches in under 60 minutes. Impart executes custom security logic inline using request context and shared session state, and blocks attacks without model inference in the traffic path.[4][10]

Impart runs inside the existing ingress, without adding an extra traffic hop or single point of failure. A lightweight module runs inside the existing ingress controller, capturing HTTP requests after TLS termination and passing them to a local inspector. If the inspector fails or times out, the module fails open. The Impart inspector runs locally alongside the ingress to evaluate request context, runtime state and custom security logic. Enforcement decisions in Impart are deterministic, and no AI inference or cloud round trip is required. Impart Cloud keeps policies and shared state in sync. Impart extends programmable Layer 7 protection to outbound AI requests and agent interactions through supported AI gateway infrastructure. Impart inspects traffic, applies custom security logic and protects sensitive data without replacing the existing gateway, routing or cost controls. The Impart Security plugin runs natively inside Kong Gateway, paired with an Impart Inspector running in the customer's own environment.[5][9][10]

Impart inspects every request to AI applications, web applications and APIs in the traffic path where it sits. The Impart integration with Wiz sends hosts to a Wiz tenant as Imported Assets, next to the cloud resources. Impart sends hostnames to Wiz and does not read Wiz issues, findings or resources. FanDuel replaced black-box security with Impart. Impart offered Crossbeam a single solution for web application, API security and LLM protection.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

Impart Security on the record

Sources

Impart Security full record

  1. [1]impart.aiImpart Security · impart.ai · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]impart.aiImpart Security · impart.ai · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Agent Protection - Control AI Agent Behavior | ImpartImpart Security · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]AI Runtime Defense | Impart Security PlatformImpart Security · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]LLM Protection | Deterministic Agent Controls | ImpartImpart Security · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]MCP Protection | Runtime Control for MCP Layer | ImpartImpart Security · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]WAF for the Agentic Era | Impart SecurityImpart Security · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]API Security for the Agentic Era | Impart SecurityImpart Security · undated page, accessed October 25, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Integrations with Impart Security | Impart Security Runtime ProtectionImpart Security · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Programmable Layer 7 Firewall | Impart SecurityImpart Security · undated page, accessed November 10, 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

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