Confidential Agents for RAG vs Valarian ACRA AI: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Confidential Agents for RAG

Enterprise security teams deploying RAG and AI agents with sensitive customer or proprietary data will find Confidential Agents for RAG essential because hardware-enforced confidential computing eliminates the attack surface that application-layer encryption leaves open. The platform covers all three NIST data and platform security controls, meaning data stays encrypted in use, not just in transit and at rest. This is overkill for teams running non-sensitive workloads or those still experimenting with RAG in dev environments; the operational complexity and cost justify themselves only when data classification actually demands it.

Valarian ACRA AI

Enterprise and mid-market teams with strict data residency requirements or regulated AI workloads will get the most from Valarian ACRA AI because it eliminates external API calls entirely,your models and inference stay behind your firewall. Air-gapped deployment, workspace-level isolation, and complete audit logging across access and model activity meet the access control and continuous monitoring demands of NIST PR.AA and DE.CM without relying on vendor infrastructure. Skip this if your priority is ease of use or rapid model iteration; the on-premises requirement and pre-provisioned access model trade deployment speed for control.