# Decision 3.0 vs ScaleDown

> Decision 3.0 scores 63.1 (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/decision-3-vs-scaledown
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- 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: 2026-10-14

Decision 3.0 scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScaleDown leads on transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- Decision 3.0: grade B, 63.1/100, rank #435 of 1084. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/decision-3.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/decision-3.json
- ScaleDown: grade D, 48.6/100, rank #873 of 1084. 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 120 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 124 documents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/document-extraction/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Decision 3.0 (B)

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

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 58 against 20
- Security & auth, 56 against 48
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 56

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

### 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:
- Transparency & trust, 54 against 45

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 | Decision 3.0 | ScaleDown | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 20 | Decision 3.0 +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 69 | Decision 3.0 +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 76 | ScaleDown +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 48 | Decision 3.0 +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Decision 3.0 +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 56 | Decision 3.0 +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 45 | 54 | ScaleDown +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **63.1 · B** | **48.6 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Decision 3.0 | ScaleDown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | vLLM Semantic Router Team | 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 for the weights and the bundled runtime, built on Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5 and Qwen3.8 bases | 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 | 2026-10-11 | 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 | none | 0 stars |

## 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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Decision 3.0 or ScaleDown?

Decision 3.0 scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScaleDown leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Decision 3.0 and ScaleDown need an API key?

Decision 3.0 needs no key. ScaleDown needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Decision 3.0 and ScaleDown without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Decision 3.0. ScaleDown has a hosted endpoint at https://api.scaledown.xyz.

### Are Decision 3.0 and ScaleDown 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 ScaleDown.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-scaledown.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-scaledown.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "decision-3", "b": "scaledown"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare decision-3 scaledown`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/decision-3.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scaledown.json

## Other comparisons with Decision 3.0 or ScaleDown

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