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Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run

Decision 3.0 vs Liquid d1

Decision 3.0 scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Liquid d1's 43.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Liquid d1 leads on transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

Best decision models for AI agents · All 105 decisions comparisons

Decision 3.0vLLM Semantic Router Team · Model API B63.1/100#413 of 965 Liquid d1Liquid AI · Model API E43.5/100#896 of 965

Which one, for what

Decision 3.0 B

Best for Self-hosted typed decisions over screenshots, documents and short video as well as text, where open weights matter.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 58 against 21
  • Schema & documentation, 70 against 59
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 63
  • Security & auth, 56 against 35
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 27
  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 60

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • Open source

Watch for

Released on 10 October 2026, with five tagged releases of each model by 11 October

Liquid d1 E

Best for Classification, routing, yes or no gates and rubric scoring over text and images at a low per-token price, or on your own hardware with d1-3B where data can't leave.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 54 against 45

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

The terms of 30 September 2026 allow Liquid to train on API content, with no opt-out or zero-retention option found

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDecision 3.0Liquid d1Edge
Reliability16%205821Decision 3.0 +37
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27059Decision 3.0 +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.27263Decision 3.0 +9
Security & auth14%17.55635Decision 3.0 +21
Payments & pricing10%12.56027Decision 3.0 +33
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88260Decision 3.0 +22
Transparency & trust7%8.84554Liquid d1 +9
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 63.1/100E 43.5/100

Facts side by side

FactDecision 3.0Liquid d1
KindModel APIModel API
VendorvLLM Semantic Router TeamLiquid AI
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 for the weights and the bundled runtime, built on Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.8 basesThe hosted d1 model is proprietary under Liquid AI's terms of service. The d1-3B and d1-omni-600M weights and model code are under the LFM Open Licence v1.0, which is based on Apache-2.0 and conditions commercial use on annual revenue under $10 million. Training code and data aren't published
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-112026-10-07
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-09-30
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2026-09-30
Customer content may train modelsyes
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

Verdicts

Decision 3.0

Open Apache-2.0 decision models that read images and video as well as text and answer several typed questions in one call, with a probability per option and tagged Hub releases. They are two days old, need a GPU and trust_remote_code, drop Vela's set and span types, and publish no calibration figures.

Liquid d1

The hosted API costs $0.04 per million input tokens and takes TypeSafe's System One request, and the d1-3B weights run locally through Transformers or llama.cpp. Liquid's terms allow it to train on API content, and no status page, rate limits or error reference were found. The family launched between 22 September and 7 October 2026.

Before you call either

Decision 3.0

  1. Pin a tag or commit with revision= when loading from the Hub. Each model had five tagged releases on 10 and 11 October
  2. Send images and videos to d3_server.py as base64 data URLs only. The server refuses paths and http URLs with 422
  3. Set DECISION_API_KEY before binding the bundled server beyond 127.0.0.1. It is open otherwise
  4. Turn on permutation_average=True when routing must not depend on option order. It is off by default
  5. Expect one request at a time from the bundled server. Use the router's model runtime for queued serving

Liquid d1

  1. POST to https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone with a liquid_ key as a Bearer header. This is not a chat-completions endpoint
  2. Use d1 for images. d1:free is text-only and answers that it does not accept images
  3. Send images as Base64 data URLs in images, at most 8, with the whole JSON body under 4.5 MB. Remote image URLs are refused
  4. Budget tokens per question. Each question is billed as its own prompt, with its text and every image counted again
  5. Don't send confidential content to the hosted API, since the terms allow training on it. Run d1-3B locally for that data

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Decision 3.0 or Liquid d1?

Decision 3.0 scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Liquid d1's 43.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Liquid d1 leads on transparency & trust.

Do Decision 3.0 and Liquid d1 need an API key?

Decision 3.0 needs no key. Liquid d1 needs an API key.

Can an agent call Decision 3.0 and Liquid d1 without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Decision 3.0. Liquid d1 has a hosted endpoint at https://api.liquid.ai/decisions/v1/systemone.

Are Decision 3.0 and Liquid d1 open source?

Decision 3.0 is open source (Apache-2.0 for the weights and the bundled runtime, built on Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.8 bases). No open-source release is listed for Liquid d1.

Other comparisons with Decision 3.0 or Liquid d1

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