You need AWS PII detection.
Amazon Comprehend PII fits teams whose text already lives in AWS and whose main goal is locating or redacting standard PII entities.
AWS Comprehend Alternative
Amazon Comprehend PII redaction finds entities. Agent Mask turns them into usable, governable de-identified data.
Amazon Comprehend PII can locate or redact PII entities in text. Agent Mask is built for production de-identification in private workflows: redacted output plus entity evidence, flexible replacement operators, plain-English custom entities, identity-aware masking, and no per-character meter.
Start a trial on Snowflake Marketplace, or get a self-hosted trial key for Docker.
Amazon ComprehendPII detection APILocate or redact PII entities through AWS API or async batch jobs
De-identification gapRedaction is not enoughAnalytics needs de-identified output, entity evidence, consistent identities, mappings, and replacement choices
Agent MaskPrivate de-identificationCustom entities, flexible operators, identity-aware masks
1SELECT agent_mask_en.app_public.mask(
2 [ticket_note, chat_log]
3) AS redacted
4FROM support_tickets;
Input column
Text
ticket_note
Billing question from
Maya Chen
PERSON_1
about invoice INV-1042. Assigned to
Alex Patel
PERSON_2
. Contact:
maya.chen@example.com
EMAIL_ADDRESS_1
or
415-555-0198
PHONE_NUMBER_1
chat_log
10:42
Alex
PERSON_2
:
Maya
PERSON_1
never got the invoice email.
10:43 Maya Chen PERSON_1 replied from maya.chen@example.com EMAIL_ADDRESS_1 and asked Alex Patel PERSON_2 to call 415-555-0198 PHONE_NUMBER_1
10:43 Maya Chen PERSON_1 replied from maya.chen@example.com EMAIL_ADDRESS_1 and asked Alex Patel PERSON_2 to call 415-555-0198 PHONE_NUMBER_1
Choose between Comprehend PII detection and a private de-identification workflow.
Amazon Comprehend is useful when an AWS application needs PII detection or redaction for standard entities. Agent Mask is for teams that need redacted output plus entity evidence, custom categories, and repeatable, analytically useful de-identified data in Snowflake or a self-hosted runtime.
You need production de-identification.
Agent Mask gives teams flexible replacement operators, custom sensitive categories, identity-aware masking, and private deployment options for warehouse and API workflows.
Amazon Comprehend PII redaction is not a full de-identification workflow.
For analytics, AI, and governed data sharing, teams need control over how each entity changes and whether identities stay consistent.
Detect PII entities or redact PII entities is a job-level choice
Comprehend's async PII job runs in either location mode or redaction mode. If you need both entity evidence and transformed output, that becomes extra API calls, extra cost, and extra reconciliation work. Agent Mask returns both in one private workflow.
Custom entities in the masking request
Comprehend's custom entities require training data and a model-training workflow outside the PII redaction call. Agent Mask lets teams define domain-specific sensitive data in plain English, such as MRNs, diagnoses, medications, internal case IDs, employee identifiers, or account references.
Identity-aware masking for useful data
Redaction alone can erase the links that make de-identified data useful. Agent Mask can map the same real-world identity to the same replacement across text columns and supported files, preserving context for analytics and ML.
Amazon Comprehend PII vs Agent Mask.
Compare the controls teams need for de-identification: entity evidence, replacement choices, custom entities, identity consistency, file handling, pricing, and implementation.
Dimension
AWS Comprehend PII
Agent Mask
Deployment path
AWS Comprehend PIIRuns as an AWS service around S3 input/output, so teams starting from Snowflake or a private deployment also have to manage staging, IAM, jobs, and writeback.
Agent MaskRuns as a Snowflake Native App for warehouse workflows, or as a self-hosted API inside your own infrastructure.
Evidence and output
AWS Comprehend PIIComprehend makes this a mode choice: location evidence or a redacted output file.
Agent MaskReturns de-identified output with entity metadata in one response.
Replacement choices
AWS Comprehend PIIRedaction uses a mask character or replaces values with the PII entity type.
Agent MaskChoose placeholders, masks, labels, hashes, encryption, synthetic values, or keep by entity type.
Custom sensitive categories
AWS Comprehend PIICustom entity recognition is a separate trained model workflow, not part of the PII redaction request.
Agent MaskDefine custom sensitive data in plain English or with regex.
Identity-aware consistency
AWS Comprehend PIIRedaction does not map aliases or repeated identities across related text.
Agent MaskKeep aliases and repeated identities mapped to consistent replacements.
File handling
AWS Comprehend PIIFiles move through AWS job inputs and outputs before results return to the warehouse.
Agent MaskProcess text, arrays, PDFs, scanned PDFs, images, DICOM, DOCX, RTF, and ZIP archives.
Pricing model
AWS Comprehend PIIPII requests are measured in 100-character units with a 300-character minimum.
Agent MaskSnowflake deployments are consumption-based through Snowflake compute; self-hosted deployments use an Agent Mask licensing fee instead of a per-character meter.
Language coverage
AWS Comprehend PIIPII detection is limited to English and Spanish.
Agent Mask14 supported languages with dedicated detection models.
Reference material
This page uses AWS documentation for Comprehend PII, redaction configuration, custom entity recognition, languages, and pricing.
Comprehend PII guide
AWS documentation for locating and redacting PII with Amazon Comprehend.
PII redaction configuration
AWS API documentation for PII redaction mask modes, mask characters, and PII entity type selection.
Comprehend pricing
AWS pricing for Detect PII, Contains PII, and custom entity recognition jobs.
Custom entity training
AWS documentation for training custom entity recognizers.
Comprehend languages
AWS documentation for Amazon Comprehend feature-level language support.
Agent Mask zero-egress architecture
Agent Mask documentation explaining how Snowflake Native App and self-hosted Docker processing stay inside your chosen runtime without sending payloads to Agent Mask.
Agent Mask self-hosted security
Agent Mask documentation for self-hosted data flow, network requirements, offline license verification, retention, and hardening.
Related comparisons
Keep evaluating redaction options across the same private-runtime, data movement, pricing, and implementation questions.
A Google Sensitive Data Protection / Google Cloud DLP alternative for private PII redaction.
Compare Agent Mask with Google Sensitive Data Protection for private PII redaction, content inspection, de-identification, and self-hosted API workflows.
Skyflow privacy vault alternative for redacting sensitive text and files.
Compare Agent Mask with Skyflow as a privacy vault alternative for app data privacy, tokenization workflows, and private PII redaction across Snowflake or self-hosted data.
Protegrity protects mapped fields. Agent Mask de-identifies PII buried in text.
Compare Agent Mask with Protegrity as an enterprise data protection alternative for PII discovery, field-level protection gaps, and private de-identification across text and files.
AWS Comprehend PII alternative FAQ
Answers for teams comparing AWS Comprehend PII with Agent Mask.
When is AWS Comprehend PII enough?
Use Comprehend when your text already lives in AWS, you only need standard PII detection or redaction, and a character-based API meter fits the workload.
Can Comprehend give us both redacted text and entity evidence?
No, Comprehend cannot return both redacted text and entity evidence from the same async PII job. You choose location mode for offsets, scores, and entity types, or redaction mode for transformed output. Teams that need both have to reconcile extra API calls and outputs.
Can Comprehend detect our custom sensitive data in the redaction request?
No, Comprehend cannot detect custom sensitive data inside the PII redaction request. Custom entity recognition is a separate trained model workflow. Agent Mask lets teams define custom sensitive categories in plain English or with regex as part of the same de-identification request.
Can Comprehend keep the same identity consistent across columns or files?
No, Comprehend cannot keep the same identity consistent across columns or files. Comprehend detects or redacts spans in the text it processes. Agent Mask can keep aliases and repeated identities mapped to consistent replacements across related text columns and supported files.
What extra work does Comprehend add for Snowflake or private deployments?
Comprehend turns that workflow into an AWS pipeline: staging inputs in S3, setting IAM permissions, handling async jobs, parsing outputs, and writing results back. Agent Mask avoids that handoff with a Snowflake Native App for warehouse workflows or a self-hosted container for private API workflows.
How does Comprehend pricing compare at scale?
Comprehend PII is measured by character units with request minimums. Agent Mask avoids that text-volume meter: Snowflake deployments are consumption-based through Snowflake compute, and self-hosted deployments use an Agent Mask licensing fee.
When should we use Agent Mask instead of AWS Comprehend PII?
Use Agent Mask when the job is production de-identification, not just PII detection: you need de-identified output and entity evidence together, custom categories in the same request, consistent replacements, and a Snowflake or self-hosted workflow without S3 staging, async jobs, and writeback.
Get entity evidence and redacted output in a single API call without per-character pricing.
Start in Snowflake Marketplace or self-host Agent Mask to return de-identified output plus entity metadata without Comprehend PII character units, S3 staging, or async job orchestration.