# Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider

> pplx-decider scores 68.1 (B) to Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C) for decision models. pplx-decider 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

pplx-decider scores 68.1 (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 payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do decision models. pplx-decider 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
- pplx-decider: grade B, 68.1/100, rank #249 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pplx-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider.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:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 65

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

### pplx-decider (B)

Good for: High-volume classification, routing and rubric scoring over text and images where a team wants a low hosted price, several related questions per item and the option to run the same weights itself.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 66 against 46
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 66
- Security & auth, 68 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for: Requests naming `pplx-decider-v1.1-27b` or `pplx-decider-v1-27b` are answered by v1.2 since 16 October 2026, with no notice period


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Granite Switch 4.1 | pplx-decider | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 46 | 66 | pplx-decider +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 89 | pplx-decider +34 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 83 | pplx-decider +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 68 | pplx-decider +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 25 | Granite Switch 4.1 +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 65 | Granite Switch 4.1 +16 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 71 | Granite Switch 4.1 +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.4 · C** | **68.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Granite Switch 4.1 | pplx-decider |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | IBM | Perplexity |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API 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 | Apache-2.0 for the published weights and inference code. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| 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) | 3.5/5 (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.

**pplx-decider.** The hosted Decisions API now serves v1.2, with an OpenAPI description, typed questions, Python and TypeScript SDK methods and $0.02 per million input tokens, and the weights are public under Apache-2.0. Requests naming v1.1 or v1 are now answered by v1.2 with no notice period, and the response does not say which version answered.

## 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

### pplx-decider

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer`. A key in `x-api-key` returns 401 on this endpoint.
2. Pin `pplx-decider-v1.2` and log it with each result. Old names and aliases route to newer versions, and the response echoes the name sent.
3. Revalidate thresholds set on v1.1. The v1.2 card says it gives different answers to v1.1-style requests.
4. Group questions that are facets of one decision. Send independent candidates, such as documents or tools, in separate requests.
5. Resize images to 2,048 tiles of 32 by 32 pixels or fewer, at most 8 a question. Larger images end in a 504 after about a minute.
6. For the weights, use the repository's `pplx_decider` package. The card says default causal inference does not reproduce the checkpoint.

## Tutorials

- [Find defect reports with Perplexity Decisions](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/pplx-decider/), for pplx-decider

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or pplx-decider?

pplx-decider scores 68.1 (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 payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Which is cheaper for decision models, Granite Switch 4.1 or pplx-decider?

Granite Switch 4.1, at free against free for pplx-decider. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Granite Switch 4.1 and pplx-decider need an API key?

Granite Switch 4.1 needs no key. pplx-decider needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and pplx-decider without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. pplx-decider has a hosted endpoint at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions.

### Are Granite Switch 4.1 and pplx-decider 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 pplx-decider.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or pplx-decider

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

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