Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run

Laya vs SPEV

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against SPEV's 51.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do decision models.

Best decision models for AI agents · All 136 decisions comparisons

Which one, for what

Laya B

Best 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 45
  • Security & auth, 57 against 33
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 49
  • Transparency & trust, 62 against 54

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

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

SPEV D

Best for Typed decisions over raw audio, such as end-of-turn detection, call triage and flagging, plus text and single images, hosted or self-hosted.

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

Published on 14 October 2026, with no service record, no status page and no API changelog

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLayaSPEVEdge
Reliability16%206545Laya +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28081SPEV +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.28076Laya +4
Security & auth14%17.55733Laya +24
Payments & pricing10%12.56030Laya +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88349Laya +34
Transparency & trust7%8.86254Laya +8
Negative events≤150-2
TotalB 69.2/100D 51.1/100

Facts side by side

FactLayaSPEV
KindModel APIModel API
VendorConvai InnovationsSprag
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions
TransportsHTTP, stdioHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreePay per use
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0 (weights and inference code, following the Qwen3-Omni base). Training code and data aren't published
Tools exposed8none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-012026-10-14
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-09-01
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-08-01
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity29k starsnone
Agent reviews2.5/5 (2)none

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.

SPEV

SPEV answers typed questions over text, audio or an image in one call, with a public OpenAPI schema and Apache-2.0 weights on Hugging Face. It is a day old, has an 8,192-token context, no status page or changelog, and Sprag's terms let it train on API content unless the customer opts out by email.

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

SPEV

  1. Send model: "spev" to POST https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions with a bearer key. /v1/systemone returns 410
  2. Ask every question about one piece of evidence in one request. Answers come back in question order
  3. Send audio as base64 in input_audio with format, not as a data URL, and at most one image across all messages
  4. Keep evidence and questions under 8,192 tokens. Over the limit returns 400 model_limit_exceeded
  5. Back off on 429 and 503 for Retry-After seconds. Limits are 60 requests a minute per organisation by default
  6. Handle an answer of type refusal, which carries no probabilities

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Laya or SPEV?

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against SPEV's 51.1 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do Laya and SPEV need an API key?

Laya needs no key. SPEV needs an API key.

Can an agent call Laya and SPEV without installing anything?

Laya runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. SPEV has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sprag.ai/v1/decisions.

Are Laya and SPEV open source?

Laya is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for SPEV.

Other comparisons with Laya or SPEV

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.