Promethean vs Credo AI
Different products for adjacent problems. Credo AI sells an AI governance platform with sales-led onboarding and heavy human-attestation. Promethean ships the cryptographic per-decision evidence layer, self-service from €0. They layer cleanly; they don't replace each other.
Comparison at a glance
| Dimension | Credo AI | Promethean |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Sales-led enterprise · ~€100k–200k+/year per common public-reference reports | Self-service · €0 Dev · €79–€2,499/mo paid · Stripe checkout |
| Primary value | AI governance workflows + policy + human-attestation | Per-decision cryptographic evidence · regulator-verifiable chain |
| Audit-trail mechanism | Platform-internal logging + human-reviewed assessments | Hash-chained Ed25519-signed L12 receipts, optionally Bitcoin-anchored |
| Regulator-side verification | Through Credo AI's platform | Independent · ~500-line Apache-2.0 verifier, runs air-gapped, no Promethean infra required |
| EU AI Act Annex III handoff | Yes (consulting + platform deliverable) | Yes (auto-generated handoff packet at Enterprise tier) |
| Source availability | Closed proprietary | Apache-2.0 verifier · BSL-1.1 SDK (auto-converts to Apache-2.0 2030-05-15) |
| Time-to-first-decision | Sales cycle + onboarding (weeks to months) | 30 seconds (signup → API key → install → first signed L12 entry) |
| What runs on operator's side | Platform integrations + reviewer workflows | SDK + chain on operator's disk; substrate hosted by Promethean |
When Credo AI is the right primary
You're a multi-business-unit enterprise needing:
- Cross-functional governance workflow (policy, intake, risk review, sign-off ladders).
- Human-attestation tooling for non-technical stakeholders (legal, ethics committees, board reporting).
- A managed compliance vendor with services + relationships, not just software.
Credo AI is solid here. The sales-led commercial model reflects the human-services depth that comes with it.
When Promethean is the right primary
You're an engineering team needing:
- Per-decision cryptographic evidence (not just human attestation that policy was followed).
- Regulator-grade audit trail that survives the "how do you know this wasn't backdated?" question.
- Self-service onboarding · sign up + ship the SDK in a day, not negotiate a contract in a quarter.
- Independent verifiability — regulators can audit the chain without going through your vendor's platform.
The €30k/year Enterprise tier is below most EU procurement thresholds for a single PO. Compliance teams can expense it without committee review.
When you use both
For a regulated EU enterprise running both: Credo AI orchestrates the human + policy side (intake, ethics review, board reporting); Promethean produces the technical evidence the human attestations point at. The L12 chain export feeds Credo AI's platform as the underlying audit data; the handoff packet that goes to a regulator references both.
This is the same pattern as Datadog + CloudTrail: an organizational tool layered on top of a cryptographic primitive. Both useful, not interchangeable.
What Promethean is honest about
- Promethean is not a certification body — it ships cryptographic evidence; your counsel decides whether the evidence satisfies the obligation.
- Promethean is not a governance workflow tool — there are no built-in risk-review intake forms, ethics committee ladders, or board-reporting dashboards. Credo AI is better for those.
- Promethean's moat is not the code — it's the operated trust anchor + framework templates + regulator relationships + accumulated chain history. The SDK is BSL-1.1 source-available; the verifier is Apache-2.0. Fork them, audit them, or just install them.