# Granite Switch 4.1 vs RightNow System Zero

> RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) to Granite Switch 4.1's 59.5 (C) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-rightnow-system-zero
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md (~3,200 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-rightnow-system-zero.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-rightnow-system-zero.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-31

RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- Granite Switch 4.1: grade C, 59.5/100, rank #639 of 1244. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-switch.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/granite-switch.json
- RightNow System Zero: grade B, 66.8/100, rank #320 of 1244. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rightnow-system-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/rightnow-system-zero.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 220 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 40
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 68
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 70

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

### RightNow System Zero (B)

Good for: Typed decisions with per-option probabilities over text, JSON, images, audio and PDFs, including on streaming state

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 86 against 66
- Security & auth, 70 against 54

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Standard context is 38,000 tokens. The 64k, 128k and 1M bands are held, and video is a preview


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Granite Switch 4.1 | RightNow System Zero | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 46 | 50 | RightNow System Zero +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 83 | RightNow System Zero +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 86 | RightNow System Zero +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 70 | RightNow System Zero +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Granite Switch 4.1 +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 68 | Granite Switch 4.1 +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 70 | Granite Switch 4.1 +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.5 · C** | **66.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Granite Switch 4.1 | RightNow System Zero |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | IBM | RightNow AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.rightnowai.co/v1/system-zero/decide` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository | Proprietary hosted model under RightNow AI terms of use; the SDKs are Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

## 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.

**RightNow System Zero.** A well-documented decision API with an OpenAPI file, idempotent retries, a detailed error catalogue, streaming over WebSocket and published per-unit prices with USD 5 of starting credit. Standard context is 38,000 tokens; the 64k, 128k and 1M bands are held and video is a preview. The latency and benchmark figures are RightNow's own, and several of its pages disagree.

## 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

### RightNow System Zero

1. Send audio only as inline 16,000 Hz WAV. The FLAC, MP3, OGG and MP4 audio named on the blog are refused with media_unsupported.
2. Keep state under 38,000 tokens. Long-context requests return 404 long_context_not_available, which never succeeds on retry.
3. Reuse the same Idempotency-Key and body on retries, and stop when error.retryable or x-should-retry is false.
4. Check every entry in answers even on HTTP 200, since one question can be refused while the others are answered.
5. Treat probabilities as uncalibrated while calibrated is false, and pin system-zero-2.0.0 when answers must not move with the alias.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or RightNow System Zero?

RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Granite Switch 4.1 and RightNow System Zero need an API key?

Granite Switch 4.1 needs no key. RightNow System Zero needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and RightNow System Zero without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. RightNow System Zero has a hosted endpoint at https://api.rightnowai.co/v1/system-zero/decide.

### Are Granite Switch 4.1 and RightNow System Zero 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 RightNow System Zero.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or RightNow System Zero

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

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