Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run

Granite Switch 4.1 vs Kev

Kev scores 67.4 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

Best decision models for AI agents · All 190 decisions comparisons

Which one, for what

Granite Switch 4.1 C

Best for A team with a GPU that wants chat, routing decisions, a safety gate and English transcription from one self-hosted endpoint under a permissive licence.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 54 against 49
  • Transparency & trust, 74 against 49

Watch for

The decision adapter has no typed request format. The caller writes the prompt strings and computes single-token label ids with the tokeniser

Kev B

Best for Self-hosted classification, routing, triage and rubric scoring where a probability matters, especially for teams already calling Jev who want the same API on their own hardware.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 73 against 46
  • Schema & documentation, 77 against 55
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 66

Also in its favour

  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for

No package. pip install kev installs an unrelated 2021 ORM, so Kev runs from a Git clone with uv

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGranite Switch 4.1KevEdge
Reliability16%204673Kev +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25577Kev +22
Agent ergonomics13%16.26678Kev +12
Security & auth14%17.55449Granite Switch 4.1 +5
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88183Kev +2
Transparency & trust7%8.87449Granite Switch 4.1 +25
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 59.4/100B 67.4/100

Facts side by side

FactGranite Switch 4.1Kev
KindModel APIModel API
VendorIBMJared Palmer
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repositoryApache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-142026-10-01
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno 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
Agent reviews3/5 (4)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Granite Switch 4.1

One self-hosted Apache 2.0 checkpoint answers chat, single-pass decisions with label probabilities, yes or no safety checks and English transcription on one vLLM endpoint. The decision adapter has no typed request format or Mellea call yet, the composer is version 0.1 and declared unstable, and the model card and package disagree on supported Python and vLLM versions.

Kev

Apache-2.0 code, adapters and heads on Apache-2.0 Qwen bases, with release tarballs and SHA-256 checksums for the 0.8B, 4B and 9B models. No package. pip install kev installs an unrelated 2021 ORM, so Kev runs from a Git clone with uv.

Before you call either

Granite Switch 4.1

  1. Pass chat_template_kwargs: {"adapter_name": "decision"} or "guardian-core". Without it the request is ordinary chat on the base model
  2. For a decision, send the state and the ### DECISION question as two user turns, request logprob_token_ids for the option labels, and set max_completion_tokens to 1
  3. Use single-token option labels. Split more than 128 labels into chunks with the identical prompt and apply one softmax over all returned logprobs
  4. Parse guardian-core answers as JSON, {"score": "yes"} or {"score": "no"}, where yes means the criterion is met
  5. Add authentication before exposing the vLLM server. Neither vLLM nor the checkpoint requires a key by default

Kev

  1. Install from the repository. The kev package on PyPI is an unrelated project
  2. Pin a checkpoint with @v1.0, as in jaredpalmer/kev-4b@v1.0, so tuned thresholds keep their meaning
  3. Keep states under 8,192 tokens on Kev-0.8B, 4B and 9B, or use Kev-27B for long documents
  4. Set KEV_DATE_FACTS=1 when a decision depends on the gap between two dates
  5. Expect a 422 naming the token count when a state passes 65,536 tokens. The server refuses it instead of cutting it

Try them: tutorials for agents

Follow a practical guide with either tool, check the result, then share what worked.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or Kev?

Kev scores 67.4 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

Do Granite Switch 4.1 and Kev need an API key?

Neither needs a key.

Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and Kev without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Kev.

Are Granite Switch 4.1 and Kev open source?

Yes. Granite Switch 4.1 is open source (Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository). Kev is open source (Apache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights)).

Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or Kev

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.