# Clef vs pplx-decider-flash

> pplx-decider-flash scores 67.9 (B) to Clef's 65.9 (B) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

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.

- Clef: grade B, 65.9/100, rank #338 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-clef.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-clef.json
- pplx-decider-flash: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #260 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pplx-decider-flash.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider-flash.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 190 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Clef (B)

Good 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | Clef | pplx-decider-flash | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 66 | pplx-decider-flash +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 89 | pplx-decider-flash +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 81 | pplx-decider-flash +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 69 | 68 | Clef +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 25 | Clef +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 54 | 67 | pplx-decider-flash +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 71 | Clef +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **65.9 · B** | **67.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Clef | pplx-decider-flash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cloudflare | Perplexity |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/{account_id}/ai/run/@cf/cloudflare/clef` | `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for decision models | not published | 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 for the published weights and inference code. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-09-12 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (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.

## Tutorials

- [Flag an outage report with Cloudflare Clef](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/cloudflare-clef/), for Clef

## 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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider-flash.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cloudflare-clef", "b": "pplx-decider-flash"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cloudflare-clef pplx-decider-flash`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cloudflare-clef.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider-flash.json

## Other comparisons with Clef or pplx-decider-flash

- [Celeris-1 Decision vs Clef](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-cloudflare-clef.md)
- [Celeris-1 Decision vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Clef vs Laya](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-convai-laya.md)
- [Clef vs Decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-decider.md)
- [Clef vs Decision 3.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-decision-3.md)
- [Clef vs GLiClass](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-gliclass.md)
- [Clef vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Clef vs Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-jaredpalmer-kev.md)
- [Clef vs Liquid d1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-liquid-d1.md)
- [Clef vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Clef vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-nace-drex.md)
- [Clef vs OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-openai-decisions-api.md)
- [Clef vs pplx-decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-pplx-decider.md)
- [Clef vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Clef vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [Clef vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [Clef vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Clef vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Clef vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-vela.md)
- [Laya vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Decider vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Decision 3.0 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [GLiClass vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gliclass-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Kev vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [OpenAI Decisions API vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-decisions-api-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-scaledown.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-vela.md)
- [pplx-decider vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)

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