Head to head · Inference decision · October 2026 research run
Clef vs Liquid d1
Clef scores 66.1 (B) on agent readiness against Liquid d1's 43.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference decision.
Which one, for what
Clef B
Good for Classification, routing and rubric scoring over text, JSON and images inside Cloudflare, or self-hosted where data can't leave.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 61 against 21
- Schema & documentation, 75 against 59
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 63
- Security & auth, 69 against 35
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 27
- Transparency & trust, 86 against 54
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
Released on 1 October 2026, with no service record and no entry in the Workers AI changelog we read
Good for Classification, routing, yes or no gates and rubric scoring over text and images at a low per-token price, or on your own hardware with d1-3B where data can't leave.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
The terms of 30 September 2026 allow Liquid to train on API content, with no opt-out or zero-retention option found
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Clef | Liquid d1 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 61 | 21 | Clef +40 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 59 | Clef +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 63 | Clef +12 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 69 | 35 | Clef +34 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 27 | Clef +13 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 56 | 60 | Liquid d1 +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 86 | 54 | Clef +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 66.1 · B | 43.5 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Clef | Liquid d1 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | Liquid AI |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clef | https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (weights and scoring code, following the Qwen base models). Training code and data aren't published | The hosted d1 model is proprietary under Liquid AI's terms of service. The d1-3B and d1-omni-600M weights and model code are under the LFM Open Licence v1.0, which is based on Apache-2.0 and conditions commercial use on annual revenue under $10 million. Training code and data aren't published |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 | 2026-09-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-09-30 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |
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.
Liquid d1
The hosted API costs $0.04 per million input tokens and takes TypeSafe's System One request, and the d1-3B weights run locally through Transformers or llama.cpp. Liquid's terms allow it to train on API content, and no status page, rate limits or error reference were found. The family launched between 22 September and 7 October 2026.
Before you call either
Clef
- Send
modelascleforclef-flashin the body as well as the model in the URL. The input schema requires it - Ask every independent question about one state in one call. Up to 64 are allowed
- Try
clef-flashfirst for text-only triage. It costs $0.09 per million input tokens against $0.24 - Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
- Treat an answer about user-supplied text as a judgement that hostile input can steer. Cloudflare publishes no guidance on it
Liquid d1
- POST to https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone with a
liquid_key as a Bearer header. This is not a chat-completions endpoint - Use
d1for images.d1:freeis text-only and answers that it does not accept images - Send images as Base64 data URLs in
images, at most 8, with the whole JSON body under 4.5 MB. Remote image URLs are refused - Budget tokens per question. Each question is billed as its own prompt, with its text and every image counted again
- Don't send confidential content to the hosted API, since the terms allow training on it. Run d1-3B locally for that data
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Clef or Liquid d1?
Clef scores 66.1 (B) on agent readiness against Liquid d1's 43.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Do Clef and Liquid d1 need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Clef and Liquid d1 without installing anything?
Yes. Clef has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clef and Liquid d1 at https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone.
Other comparisons with Clef or Liquid d1
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-liquid-d1.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-clef.json·/api/v1/tools/liquid-d1.json - From a terminal
anchor compare cloudflare-clef liquid-d1(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "cloudflare-clef", "b": "liquid-d1"}at/mcp, no key