# Laya vs Granite Switch 4.1

> Laya scores 69.2 (B) to Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- Laya: grade B, 69.2/100, rank #208 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/convai-laya.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/convai-laya.json
- Granite Switch 4.1: grade C, 59.4/100, rank #601 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-switch.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/granite-switch.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

### Laya (B)

Good for: Fast, cheap classification and routing on short text in many languages, as a base to fine-tune on your own labels, and as an MCP or LangGraph routing step.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 46
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 66

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Base checkpoints score 0.362 and 0.352 on the maintainers' typed-decisions benchmark against a 0.318 random baseline, so it needs fine-tuning

### Granite Switch 4.1 (C)

Good for: A team with a GPU that wants chat, routing decisions, a safety gate and English transcription from one self-hosted endpoint under a permissive licence.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 62

Also in its favour:
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: The decision adapter has no typed request format. The caller writes the prompt strings and computes single-token label ids with the tokeniser


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Laya | Granite Switch 4.1 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 46 | Laya +19 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 55 | Laya +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 66 | Laya +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 54 | Laya +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 81 | Laya +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 74 | Granite Switch 4.1 +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.2 · B** | **59.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Laya | Granite Switch 4.1 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Convai Innovations | IBM |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 29k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Laya.** Apache-2.0 code and weights, installed with `pip install laya`, with Python 3.10 to 3.13 tested in CI. Base checkpoints score 0.362 and 0.352 on the maintainers' typed-decisions benchmark against a 0.318 random baseline, so it needs fine-tuning.

**Granite Switch 4.1.** One self-hosted Apache 2.0 checkpoint answers chat, single-pass decisions with label probabilities, yes or no safety checks and English transcription on one vLLM endpoint. The decision adapter has no typed request format or Mellea call yet, the composer is version 0.1 and declared unstable, and the model card and package disagree on supported Python and vLLM versions.

## Before you call either

### Laya

1. Set `LAYA_API_KEY` before starting `laya-serve`. It listens on every interface by default
2. Gate on `answer_confidence`, not `confidence`, which measures entropy and doesn't match Jev's field
3. Shortlist choice questions with more than about 20 options using `predict_shortlist` or the `laya_shortlist` tool
4. Use semantic or opaque labels such as `A` and `B`, not `yes` and `no`, in choice questions. The checkpoints can follow the label text
5. Pass `model="multilingual"` and `max_len=8192` for long documents. The English checkpoint stops at 512 tokens

### Granite Switch 4.1

1. Pass `chat_template_kwargs: {"adapter_name": "decision"}` or `"guardian-core"`. Without it the request is ordinary chat on the base model
2. For a decision, send the state and the `### DECISION` question as two user turns, request `logprob_token_ids` for the option labels, and set `max_completion_tokens` to 1
3. Use single-token option labels. Split more than 128 labels into chunks with the identical prompt and apply one softmax over all returned logprobs
4. Parse `guardian-core` answers as JSON, `{"score": "yes"}` or `{"score": "no"}`, where yes means the criterion is met
5. Add authentication before exposing the vLLM server. Neither vLLM nor the checkpoint requires a key by default

## Tutorials

- [Route a support request locally with Laya](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/convai-laya/), for Laya

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Laya or Granite Switch 4.1?

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Laya and Granite Switch 4.1 need an API key?

Neither needs a key.

### Can an agent call Laya and Granite Switch 4.1 without installing anything?

Laya runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1.

### Are Laya and Granite Switch 4.1 open source?

Yes. Laya is open source (Apache-2.0). Granite Switch 4.1 is open source (Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Laya or Granite Switch 4.1

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

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