# Granite Switch 4.1 vs Microsoft-Decision-1

> Granite Switch 4.1 scores 59.4 (C) to Microsoft-Decision-1's 38.8 (E) for decision models. Microsoft-Decision-1 is cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Granite Switch 4.1 scores 59.4 (C) on agent readiness against Microsoft-Decision-1's 38.8 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do decision models. Microsoft-Decision-1 is cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens.

- Granite Switch 4.1: grade C, 59.4/100, rank #601 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-switch.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/granite-switch.json
- Microsoft-Decision-1: grade E, 38.8/100, rank #1046 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microsoft-decision-1.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-decision-1.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 190 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Granite Switch 4.1 (C)

Good 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:
- Reliability, 46 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 55 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 66 against 50
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 29

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

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

### Microsoft-Decision-1 (E)

Good for: Routing, classification, prioritisation and rubric checks over text, where a fixed set of options and a low price per token matter more than generated text.

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens

Watch for: Public preview only. Microsoft's post gives no general availability date and states no licence for the hosted model


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Granite Switch 4.1 | Microsoft-Decision-1 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 46 | 30 | Granite Switch 4.1 +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 43 | Granite Switch 4.1 +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 50 | Granite Switch 4.1 +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 52 | Granite Switch 4.1 +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 20 | Granite Switch 4.1 +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 40 | Granite Switch 4.1 +41 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 29 | Granite Switch 4.1 +45 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.4 · C** | **38.8 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Granite Switch 4.1 | Microsoft-Decision-1 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | IBM | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Price for decision models | free | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository | Not stated. The announcement and OpenRouter's model page name no licence, and no weights repository was found. |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-09 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| 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 reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |

## 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.

**Microsoft-Decision-1.** Microsoft publishes $0.042 per million input tokens, with output free, and the model is callable through Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter. It is in public preview. No licence, model-specific retention statement, rate limit or deprecation policy was found, and the Foundry route needs an Azure deployment and an Entra token. Latency and accuracy figures are Microsoft's claims.

## 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

### Microsoft-Decision-1

1. Use OpenRouter's Decisions method, not an OpenAI chat-completions SDK. OpenRouter says chat completions SDKs will not work with this model
2. On Foundry, send the request to the deployment's /providers/microsoft/v1/systemone path with a Microsoft Entra token for https://cognitiveservices.azure.com/.default, not an API key
3. Take the deployment name from the Foundry quickstart before the first call. Microsoft says to confirm the route and authentication header, and the pages reviewed do not give the name
4. Keep each request within OpenRouter's 32,768-token context and send only fixed options, since the model is not intended for open-ended generation
5. Measure latency and calibration on your own labelled cases before relying on Microsoft's latency and 'nine times out of 10' statements

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or Microsoft-Decision-1?

Granite Switch 4.1 scores 59.4 (C) on agent readiness against Microsoft-Decision-1's 38.8 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Which is cheaper for decision models, Granite Switch 4.1 or Microsoft-Decision-1?

Granite Switch 4.1, at free against free for Microsoft-Decision-1. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Granite Switch 4.1 and Microsoft-Decision-1 need an API key?

Granite Switch 4.1 needs no key. Microsoft-Decision-1 takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and Microsoft-Decision-1 without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Microsoft-Decision-1.

### Are Granite Switch 4.1 and Microsoft-Decision-1 open source?

Granite Switch 4.1 is open source (Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository). No open-source release is listed for Microsoft-Decision-1.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-microsoft-decision-1.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-microsoft-decision-1.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "granite-switch", "b": "microsoft-decision-1"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare granite-switch microsoft-decision-1`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/granite-switch.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/microsoft-decision-1.json

## Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or Microsoft-Decision-1

- [Celeris-1 Decision vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Celeris-1 Decision vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Clef vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Clef vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Laya vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Laya vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Decider vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Decider vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Decision 3.0 vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [Decision 3.0 vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [GLiClass vs Granite Switch 4.1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gliclass-vs-granite-switch.md)
- [GLiClass vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gliclass-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-jaredpalmer-kev.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Liquid d1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-liquid-d1.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-nace-drex.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-openai-decisions-api.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-pplx-decider.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-vela.md)
- [Kev vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-nace-drex.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-openai-decisions-api.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs pplx-decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-pplx-decider.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs pplx-decider-flash](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-pplx-decider-flash.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-vela.md)

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