# Decider vs ScaleDown

> Decider scores 69.5 (B) to ScaleDown's 48.6 (D) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-scaledown
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-scaledown.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-scaledown.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-scaledown.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
- 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: 2026-10-15

Decider scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScaleDown leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- Decider: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #190 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/decider.json
- ScaleDown: grade D, 48.6/100, rank #880 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scaledown.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scaledown.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 136 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md
- Best document parsing, OCR and extraction APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/document-extraction/index.md
- All 125 documents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/document-extraction/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Decider (B)

Good for: Local classification, routing, triage and checks where a team wants open weights in several sizes and a Jev-shaped route.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 69
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 56

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: The local server has no authentication option. It binds to 127.0.0.1 since 1.7.1

### ScaleDown (D)

Good for: Cheap, high-volume labelling, routing and yes or no checks where a probability is more useful than prose, and for pulling described fields with offsets from text, images or PDFs.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 48 against 38
- Transparency & trust, 54 against 46

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA outside enterprise contracts


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Decider | ScaleDown | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 20 | Decider +70 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 69 | Decider +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 76 | Decider +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 48 | ScaleDown +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Decider +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 56 | Decider +31 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 46 | 54 | ScaleDown +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **69.5 · B** | **48.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Decider | ScaleDown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Mark Marosi (Mapika) | Carbon ScaleDown, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.scaledown.xyz` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (code and weights) | Proprietary hosted models under ScaleDown's Terms of Service. The langchain-scaledown integration is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 1.1k stars, 2.7k PyPI/wk | 0 stars |

## Verdicts

**Decider.** An Apache-2.0 decision model family with a dated changelog, passing CI, 21 package releases since 22 September 2026 and model cards that list measured regressions. One person maintains it, the local server has no authentication option, states over 32,768 tokens are cut without an error, and no security policy is published.

**ScaleDown.** Classify answers Jev-shaped `choice`, `noul` and `score` questions with probabilities, and Extract returns values with confidences and character offsets, at $0.05 per million input tokens with output free. There is no status page, no published rate limit and no public changelog, and the site's compliance claims contradict each other.

## Before you call either

### Decider

1. Pin weights by Hub tag (`v10`, `v2`) when results must repeat. The `main` branch of each model repository changes with new versions
2. Read `x_p_max` for the top probability. Since 1.3.0 `confidence` on choice and score answers follows TypeSafe's rescaled definition, not the top probability
3. Keep the server on 127.0.0.1 or put an authenticating proxy in front. It has no key option
4. Count state tokens before sending. Over 32,768 the state is cut silently, and `/decide` caps context at 1,536 tokens
5. Split multi-step arithmetic or multi-hop judgements into several questions, and don't write long rules into a question. The README says both fail

### ScaleDown

1. Send several questions about one item in one `/v1/scaledown` call. Each becomes its own Classify call and the usage is summed
2. Pin `classify-1`, `extract-1` or `summarize-1` once you've tuned thresholds on your own labelled cases
3. Set `context_chars` to 0 and use `top_n` on Extract unless you need the 500 characters of context each side
4. Set `reasoning: false` on /classify when you only need the label. The reasoning call bills its input at 2x
5. Back off and retry on 429, 502 and 504. No limits are published and calls have no side effects

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Decider or ScaleDown?

Decider scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScaleDown leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Do Decider and ScaleDown need an API key?

Decider needs no key. ScaleDown needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Decider and ScaleDown without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Decider. ScaleDown has a hosted endpoint at https://api.scaledown.xyz.

### Are Decider and ScaleDown open source?

Decider is open source (Apache-2.0 (code and weights)). No open-source release is listed for ScaleDown.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Decider or ScaleDown

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