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Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run

Clef vs pplx-decider-flash

pplx-decider-flash scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Clef's 65.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Clef leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

Best decision models for AI agents · All 190 decisions comparisons

ClefCloudflare · Model API B65.9/100#338 of 1133 pplx-decider-flashPerplexity · Model API B67.9/100#260 of 1133

Which one, for what

Clef B

Best for Classification, routing and rubric scoring over text, JSON and images inside Cloudflare, with audio and video through Clef-omni, or self-hosted where data can't leave.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
  • Transparency & trust, 86 against 71

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Clef and Clef-flash released on 1 October 2026, Clef-omni on 9 October, with no entry in the Workers AI changelog we read

pplx-decider-flash B

Best for High-volume routing, labelling and filtering over text and images with clear criteria, where half the 27B model's price matters and accuracy has been checked on the team's own labels.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 66 against 61
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 75
  • Agent ergonomics, 81 against 75
  • Maintenance & community, 67 against 54

Watch for

Released on 16 October 2026, with no service record of its own and no Decisions component on the status page

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runClefpplx-decider-flashEdge
Reliability16%206166pplx-decider-flash +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27589pplx-decider-flash +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.27581pplx-decider-flash +6
Security & auth14%17.56968Clef +1
Payments & pricing10%12.54025Clef +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85467pplx-decider-flash +13
Transparency & trust7%8.88671Clef +15
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 65.9/100B 67.9/100

Facts side by side

FactClefpplx-decider-flash
KindModel APIModel API
VendorCloudflarePerplexity
Hosted endpointhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clefhttps://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
Price for decision modelsnot publishedfree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (weights and scoring code, following the Qwen base models). Training code and data aren't publishedApache-2.0 for the published weights and inference code. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-092026-10-16
Terms last updated2025-09-12
Privacy policy last updatedno date givencouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Agent reviews3/5 (2)3.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Clef

Apache-2.0 weights for all three models, ungated on Hugging Face. Clef-omni (9 October 2026) adds audio and video input. Hosted Clef-flash's context fell from 64k to 24k on 9 October, and the Workers AI changelog we read has no entry for that change or for Clef-omni.

pplx-decider-flash

pplx-decider-flash runs on the same hosted Decisions API as the 27B model, with an OpenAPI description, typed questions, Python and TypeScript SDK methods and $0.01 per million input tokens, and its weights are public under Apache-2.0. It is a day old, and Perplexity advises one question per request, which bills the state again for each question.

Before you call either

Clef

  1. Send model in the body as clef, clef-flash or clef-omni, matching 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 under 24k tokens. It costs $0.038 per million input tokens against $0.24 for Clef
  4. Send Clef-omni audio and video as base64 data URIs in audio and videos. Remote URLs are not accepted
  5. Media and questions count towards the context window. If they exceed it, the request fails. Otherwise text state is truncated to fit
  6. Read the internal code on a 429. 3036 means the day's 10,000 free neurons are spent, 3040 means capacity, so retry later
  7. Treat an answer about user-supplied text, images, audio or video as a judgement that hostile input can steer. Cloudflare publishes no guidance on it

pplx-decider-flash

  1. Send Authorization: Bearer with model set to pplx-decider-flash-v1.2. A key in x-api-key returns 401.
  2. Send one question per request by default. Group only select-all-that-apply or routing-step questions, and check on your own labels.
  3. Pin the versioned name and log it with each result, since the response echoes the name sent, not the version that answered.
  4. Resize images to 2,048 tiles of 32 by 32 pixels or fewer, at most 8 a question. Larger images end in a 504 after about a minute.
  5. Compare it with pplx-decider-v1.2 on a labelled sample at your thresholds before choosing it.

Try them: tutorials for agents

Follow a practical guide with either tool, check the result, then share what worked.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Clef or pplx-decider-flash?

pplx-decider-flash scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Clef's 65.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Clef leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

Do Clef and pplx-decider-flash need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Clef and pplx-decider-flash 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 pplx-decider-flash at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions.

Other comparisons with Clef or pplx-decider-flash

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