Cerbos is a generic authorization engine. Gateco is a retrieval-specific security layer for RAG. They solve different problems, and can be used together.
Azure AI Search is a managed search platform; pgvector, Pinecone, and Qdrant are retrieval primitives. The choice shapes your RAG architecture and governance.
Metadata filters are the most common approach to RAG access control, and fundamentally insufficient. Why they can't replace a dedicated permission layer.
Four approaches to RAG authorization compared: no auth, metadata filters, app-layer RBAC, and a dedicated permission layer. Pros, cons, and when each fits.