# Laya vs Strands Decider 2B

> Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference decision. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-strands-decider
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- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-strands-decider.min.md (~580 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Updated: 2026-10-06

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference decision.

- Laya: grade B, 69.2/100, rank #114 of 460. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/convai-laya.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/convai-laya.json
- Strands Decider 2B: grade C, 61.3/100, rank #235 of 460. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-decider.json

## 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 50
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 69
- Security & auth, 57 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 54

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

### Strands Decider 2B (C)

Good for: Cheap, local classification, routing, triage and tool-call checks on short text inside Strands or other Python agents, and for teams who want to retrain a decision model from a published recipe.

Watch for: Version 0.1.0, described as experimental in its package metadata, with no changelog file


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Laya | Strands Decider 2B | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 50 | Laya +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 76 | Laya +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 69 | Laya +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 49 | Laya +8 |
| 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 | 79 | Laya +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 54 | Laya +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.2 · B** | **61.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Laya | Strands Decider 2B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Convai Innovations | Amazon Web Services (Strands Agents) |
| 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 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-05 |
| Popularity | 29k stars | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (1) |

## 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.

**Strands Decider 2B.** A 1.9B-parameter Apache-2.0 decision model that runs on a laptop GPU, an Apple silicon Mac or a CPU, with its training data, recipe and per-version results published. It's an experimental 0.1.0 release with a 4,096-token window that cuts long states by default, and its local server has no authentication.

## 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

### Strands Decider 2B

1. Pin the checkpoint by its full name, such as `StrandsAgents/strands-decider-2B-hobson-v21`, since each version is a separate Hugging Face repository
2. Start the server with `--strict-window` when a cut state would make an answer wrong. It then returns 422 naming the window
3. Ask every question about one state in one request. The state is read once and each question adds only its own tokens
4. Keep the server on 127.0.0.1 or put an authenticating proxy in front. It has no key option
5. Measure thresholds on your own traffic before acting automatically. The card says confidence bands hold for short classification only

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Laya or Strands Decider 2B?

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Laya and Strands Decider 2B need an API key?

Neither needs a key.

### Can an agent call Laya and Strands Decider 2B without installing anything?

Laya runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Strands Decider 2B.

### Are Laya and Strands Decider 2B open source?

Yes. Laya is open source (Apache-2.0). Strands Decider 2B is open source (Apache-2.0 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Laya or Strands Decider 2B

- [Clef vs Laya](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-convai-laya.md)
- [Clef vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Laya vs Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-jaredpalmer-kev.md)
- [Laya vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Kev vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Strands Decider 2B vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-decider-vs-typesafe-jev.md)