# Clef vs Kev

> Kev has a score of 67.4 (B) against Clef's 66.3 (B). Both do inference decision. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 40 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-jaredpalmer-kev
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- Updated: 2026-10-04

Kev has a score of 67.4 (B) against Clef's 66.3 (B). Both do inference decision. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 40 points.

- Clef: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #159 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-clef.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-clef.json
- Kev: grade B, 67.4/100, rank #141 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Clef for security & auth (+20), transparency & trust (+40).

Pick Kev for reliability (+12), payments & pricing (+20), maintenance & community (+27).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Clef | Kev | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 73 | Kev +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 77 | Kev +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 78 | Kev +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 69 | 49 | Clef +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Kev +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 83 | Kev +27 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 89 | 49 | Clef +40 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.3 · B** | **67.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Clef | Kev |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | Jared Palmer |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clef` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (weights and scoring code, following the Qwen base models). Training code and data aren't published | Apache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Clef.** Apache-2.0 weights for both models on Hugging Face, ungated, with no account needed to download. Released on 1 October 2026, with no service record and no entry in the Workers AI changelog we read.

**Kev.** Apache-2.0 code, adapters and heads on Apache-2.0 Qwen bases, with release tarballs and SHA-256 checksums for the 0.8B, 4B and 9B models. No package. `pip install kev` installs an unrelated 2021 ORM, so Kev runs from a Git clone with uv.

## Before you call either

### Clef

1. Send `model` as `clef` or `clef-flash` in the body as well as the model in the URL. The input schema requires it
2. Ask every independent question about one state in one call. Up to 64 are allowed
3. Try `clef-flash` first for text-only triage. It costs $0.09 per million input tokens against $0.24
4. Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
5. Treat an answer about user-supplied text as a judgement that hostile input can steer. Cloudflare publishes no guidance on it

### Kev

1. Install from the repository. The `kev` package on PyPI is an unrelated project
2. Pin a checkpoint with `@v1.0`, as in `jaredpalmer/kev-4b@v1.0`, so tuned thresholds keep their meaning
3. Keep states under 8,192 tokens on Kev-0.8B, 4B and 9B, or use Kev-27B for long documents
4. Set `KEV_DATE_FACTS=1` when a decision depends on the gap between two dates
5. Expect a 422 naming the token count when a state passes 65,536 tokens. The server refuses it instead of cutting it

## Other comparisons with Clef or Kev

- [Clef vs Laya](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-convai-laya.md)
- [Clef vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Laya vs Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-jaredpalmer-kev.md)
- [Kev vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-typesafe-jev.md)