# Laya vs Vela 2.0

> Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Vela 2.0's 66.5 (B), and leads in 4 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-vela
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-vela.md (~2,000 tokens)
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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-vela.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
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Vela 2.0's 66.5 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference decision.

- Laya: grade B, 69.2/100, rank #163 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/convai-laya.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/convai-laya.json
- Vela 2.0: grade B, 66.5/100, rank #237 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vela.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vela.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 57
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 48

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

### Vela 2.0 (B)

Good for: Self-hosted routing and guardrail checks in one call, where span offsets for personal data or unsupported claims matter.

Watch for: No version tags on the four Hub repositories, and the 4B and 9B weights were replaced in place on 3 October 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Laya | Vela 2.0 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 57 | Laya +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 78 | Laya +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 79 | Laya +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 60 | Vela 2.0 +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 | 84 | Vela 2.0 +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 48 | Laya +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.2 · B** | **66.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Laya | Vela 2.0 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Convai Innovations | vLLM Semantic Router project and KR Labs |
| 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 (weights, code and documentation). The 0.3B's tokeniser keeps the Gemma Terms of Use, and training data keeps its own licences |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| 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 | 6.1k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (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.

**Vela 2.0.** One self-hosted call answers routing, prompt-attack, personal-data and unsupported-claim questions with probabilities and character offsets, under Apache-2.0 with SHA-256 manifests. The models are days old and carry no Hub version tags, and the three larger sizes keep 74 to 89 per cent of their Decision 2.0 bases on the Jev Decision Index by the authors' figures.

## 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

### Vela 2.0

1. Pin a commit hash with `revision=` when loading from the Hub. The repositories have no tags and `main` has changed since launch
2. Send the served name in `model`, for example `vllm-sr/Vela-2.0-4B`. The bundled server answers 422 to any other name
3. Name span questions `pii`, `halu` or `toxic`, or set `"head": "router"`, to get the trained router head. Other labels go to the broad head
4. Keep input under 16,384 tokens a sequence (8,192 on the 0.3B). The bundled server answers 413 when the questions alone don't fit
5. Set `VELA2_API_KEY` before binding the bundled server beyond 127.0.0.1, and keep the model runtime on a trusted network

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Laya or Vela 2.0?

Laya scores 69.2 (B) on agent readiness against Vela 2.0's 66.5 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Laya and Vela 2.0 need an API key?

Neither needs a key.

### Can an agent call Laya and Vela 2.0 without installing anything?

Laya runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Vela 2.0.

### Are Laya and Vela 2.0 open source?

Yes. Laya is open source (Apache-2.0). Vela 2.0 is open source (Apache-2.0 (weights, code and documentation). The 0.3B's tokeniser keeps the Gemma Terms of Use, and training data keeps its own licences).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Laya or Vela 2.0

- [Clef vs Laya](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-convai-laya.md)
- [Clef vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-vela.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 OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-openai-decisions-api.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)
- [Kev vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-vela.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-vela.md)
- [OpenAI Decisions API vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-decisions-api-vs-vela.md)
- [Strands Decider 2B vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/strands-decider-vs-vela.md)
- [Jev vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/typesafe-jev-vs-vela.md)