Both Cerbos and Permit.io are dedicated authorization/policy platforms supporting RBAC, ABAC, and ReBAC with AI agent authorization features, making them…
Best for Cerbos: Teams wanting a YAML-based policy engine with explicit air-gapped and on-premise deployment support, plus unlimited monthly active principals in the free open-source version.
Best for Permit.io: Teams wanting a UI-driven policy platform built on the established OPA/OPAL open-source projects, with a dedicated MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents for AI monitoring, and a lower-cost paid entry point starting at $5/month.
At a Glance
Cerbos
Permit.io
Primary category
Security
Security
Rating
Not documented
Not documented
Pricing model
Freemium
Freemium
Starting price
Free (PDP open source); Hub from $25/month
Free (up to 1,000 monthly active users); paid plans from $5/month
Free plan
Yes
Yes
Free trial
Yes
Not documented
Platforms
Web
Web
Team collaboration
Not documented
Not documented
AI features
Not documented
Yes
Public API
Yes
Yes
Key Differences
Policy Foundation
Cerbos: Cerbos defines policies using its own YAML-based policy language across RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, or PBAC models.
Permit.io: Permit.io is built on the open-source Open Policy Agent (OPA) and OPAL projects as its policy engine foundation.
Teams already invested in OPA tooling may prefer building on that ecosystem rather than learning a new proprietary policy language.
Free Tier Limits
Cerbos: Cerbos's open-source core has unlimited monthly active principals, but its free cloud Proof of Concept tier caps at 100 MAPs.
Permit.io: Permit.io's free Community plan covers up to 1,000 monthly active users with unlimited authorization microservices.
The size of a usable free tier affects how long a team can build and test before needing to pay.
Paid Entry Pricing
Cerbos: Cerbos's Development tier starts at $25/month, with a steep jump to $933/month for the Production tier.
Permit.io: Permit.io's Startup tier starts at $5/month and Pro at $25/month, offering a more gradual price ramp.
A steep price jump between tiers can force a team into a large budget increase sooner than expected.
AI Agent Tooling
Cerbos: Cerbos offers AI agent guardrails with MCP support for governing and revoking agent tool access in seconds.
Permit.io: Permit.io offers a dedicated MCP Gateway plus Guardian Agents that monitor for anomalous access behavior and recommend policy changes.
Both platforms treat AI agent authorization as a first-class concern, but Permit.io adds proactive anomaly monitoring on top.
SSO Access Cost
Cerbos: Cerbos requires moving to custom Enterprise pricing to get SSO support.
Permit.io: Permit.io requires an additional cost for SSO even on its paid Pro plan.
Enterprises requiring SSO for internal tooling should budget for it as an add-on cost with either vendor.
Feature-by-Feature
Policy Engine & Models
Feature
Cerbos
Permit.io
RBAC / ABAC / ReBAC support
Available
Available
PBAC support
Available
Available
Policy language
Available
Available
Sub-millisecond decision latency
Available
Available
AI Agent Authorization
Feature
Cerbos
Permit.io
MCP integration for AI agent tool access
Available
Available
AI anomaly monitoring
Not documented
Available
Audit logs / decision traces
Available
Available
Pricing & Deployment
Feature
Cerbos
Permit.io
Free open-source / community tier
Available
Available
Entry paid plan price
Limited
Limited
SSO included on mid-tier plan
Unavailable
Limited
On-premise / air-gapped deployment
Available
Available
Pricing Compared
Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.
Cerbos
PDP (Open Source) — Free N/A
Hub - Proof of Concept — $0/month Monthly
Hub - Development — From $25/month Monthly
Hub - Production — From $933/month Monthly
Hub - Enterprise — Custom Annual
Permit.io
Community — Free N/A
Startup — From $5/month Monthly or yearly (18% discount)
Pro — From $25/month Monthly or yearly (18% discount)
Enterprise — Custom (contact sales) Custom
Pros & Cons
Cerbos
Pros
Open-source PDP is free to self-host indefinitely under Apache 2.0
Supports RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, and PBAC models rather than a single fixed model
Sub-millisecond decision latency suited to high-throughput applications
Cerbos Hub adds policy testing, versioning, and audit trails without giving up the open-source core
Cons
Production-tier Cerbos Hub pricing starting at $933/month is a significant jump from the Development tier
Requires engineering investment to model application resources and actions as Cerbos policies
Open-core model means some governance and audit features are commercial-only
Relatively young company, founded in 2021, compared to some established authorization and IAM vendors
Permit.io
Pros
Generous free tier (1,000 monthly active users with full feature access)
Visual, low-code policy editor lowers the barrier to implementing fine-grained access control
Supports RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC and PBAC models in one platform
Ready-made embeddable UI components speed up building permission-management screens
GitOps workflow fits naturally into existing CI/CD pipelines
Cons
Hosted-first architecture means less control than a fully self-hosted, open-source alternative
Costs can scale quickly as monthly active users and tenants grow beyond the free and Startup tiers
Enterprise features like HIPAA and GDPR compliance support and multi-cloud deployment require custom Enterprise pricing
Smaller company (reported around 14-25 employees) than some enterprise-focused competitors
Advanced compliance certifications such as SOC 2 Type II are gated behind the paid Pro tier
Use Cases
Choose Cerbos: Teams wanting a YAML-based policy engine with explicit air-gapped and on-premise deployment support, plus unlimited monthly active principals in the free open-source version.
Choose Permit.io: Teams wanting a UI-driven policy platform built on the established OPA/OPAL open-source projects, with a dedicated MCP Gateway and Guardian Agents for AI monitoring, and a lower-cost paid entry point starting at $5/month.
Need both: Unlikely — both are largely substitutable authorization engines solving the same problem, so most teams would pick one rather than run both in production, though an organization migrating between vendors might run them in parallel temporarily during evaluation.
Cerbos
Fine-Grained SaaS Authorization — Multi-tenant SaaS applications use Cerbos to manage complex, per-resource permission logic outside their application code.
AI Agent Access Control — Teams use Cerbos and Synapse to define and audit exactly what internal systems and data AI agents are permitted to access.
Permit.io
Startup and scale-up access control — Early-stage engineering teams use Permit.io's free and Startup tiers to stand up fine-grained permissions quickly without building an in-house system.
AI agent and tool authorization — Teams building AI products use Permit.io to gate what autonomous agents and tools are allowed to do within an application.
Enterprise compliance-driven authorization — Larger organizations use Permit.io's Enterprise tier to meet HIPAA, GDPR and CCPA requirements while deploying across multi-cloud or on-premises environments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Cerbos and Permit.io built on the same technology?
No. Cerbos uses its own YAML-based policy language, while Permit.io is built on the open-source OPA and OPAL projects.
Which has AI agent authorization features?
Both do. Cerbos offers AI agent guardrails with MCP integration, and Permit.io offers an MCP Gateway plus Guardian Agents for anomaly monitoring.
Which is cheaper to start with a paid plan?
Permit.io's Startup plan starts at $5/month, compared to Cerbos's Development tier at $25/month.
Does either support SSO on lower-tier plans?
No. Permit.io requires an additional cost for SSO even on its Pro plan, and Cerbos requires custom Enterprise pricing for SSO.
Can both be self-hosted or run on-premise?
Yes. Cerbos supports self-hosted, on-premise, and air-gapped deployment, and Permit.io offers both managed cloud and self-hosted/on-premises deployment.
How big is the jump to Cerbos's Production tier?
Cerbos's Production plan starts at $933/month for the first 5,000 monthly active principals, a much bigger jump than its $25/month Development tier.