Rampart
Tied for most recommended of 4 pii redaction tools
Recommended for catching secrets in AI agent tool responses before the agent sees them, and for its publicly available source. Critics doubt it meets HIPAA de-identification and detection accuracy standards.
Recommended for catching secrets in AI agent tool responses before the agent sees them, and for its publicly available source. Critics doubt it meets HIPAA de-identification and detection accuracy standards.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Catches secrets in tool responses
“Rampart catches the secret in the tool response before the agent ever sees it.”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Rampart – Open-source firewall for AI agents (v0.8)” Source code publicly available
“Good thing you don't need much trust in this case. Source available here”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction” Commendable even if imperfect
“This is commendable on its own, even if it’s not perfect.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Privacy practices and HIPAA compliance concerns
“does this library, as described in the blog post, de-identify data sufficiently for HIPAA? then no, it doesn't appear that it does.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction” “violated long-standing security practices and copied a social security database into an insecure AWS instance”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction” “the example on the page shows a person sharing their SNN with a chatbot to help them find an apartment”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction” Detection accuracy and coverage gaps
“Regex over arbitrary string literals does not represent determinism in this context.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction” “The response scanning gap I'd probe first: base64-encoded or chunk-split secrets.”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Rampart – Open-source firewall for AI agents (v0.8)” “98.4% is nowhere near good enough to call it PII redaction.”
Comment from 10 Oct 2026 in “Rampart: Browser native on-device PII radaction”
Other pii redaction tools people recommend
The three most recommended other pii redaction tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RampartThis page | 7 | 7 | 50% | 4 | — | — |
| OpenAI Privacy Filter | 7 | 1 | 88% | 2 | — | — |
| Microsoft Presidio | 5 | 3 | 63% | 3 | — | — |
| PII-Shield | 5 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“violated long-standing security practices and copied a social security database into an insecure AWS instance”
“does this library, as described in the blog post, de-identify data sufficiently for HIPAA? then no, it doesn't appear that it does.”
“This is commendable on its own, even if it’s not perfect.”
“98.4% is nowhere near good enough to call it PII redaction.”
“Regex over arbitrary string literals does not represent determinism in this context.”
“the example on the page shows a person sharing their SNN with a chatbot to help them find an apartment”
“Good thing you don't need much trust in this case. Source available here”
“I'm currently doing a deep dive on Rampart, their (allegedly) local PII filter.”
“The response scanning gap I'd probe first: base64-encoded or chunk-split secrets.”
“Rampart catches the secret in the tool response before the agent ever sees it.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.