# Granite Switch 4.1 vs Strands Decider 2B

> Strands Decider 2B scores 61.3 (C) to Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Strands Decider 2B scores 61.3 (C) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- 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
- Strands Decider 2B: grade C, 61.3/100, rank #522 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-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:
- Security & auth, 54 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 54

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

### Strands Decider 2B (C)

Good for: Cheap, local classification, routing, triage and tool-call checks on short text inside Strands or other Python agents, and for teams who want to retrain a decision model from a published recipe.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 76 against 55

Watch for: Version 0.1.0, described as experimental in its package metadata, with no changelog file


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Granite Switch 4.1 | Strands Decider 2B | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 46 | 50 | Strands Decider 2B +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 76 | Strands Decider 2B +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 69 | Strands Decider 2B +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 49 | Granite Switch 4.1 +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 79 | Granite Switch 4.1 +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 54 | Granite Switch 4.1 +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.4 · C** | **61.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Granite Switch 4.1 | Strands Decider 2B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | IBM | Amazon Web Services (Strands Agents) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository | Apache-2.0 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no 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 reviews | 3/5 (4) | 2/5 (1) |

## 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.

**Strands Decider 2B.** A 1.9B-parameter Apache-2.0 decision model that runs on a laptop GPU, an Apple silicon Mac or a CPU, with its training data, recipe and per-version results published. It's an experimental 0.1.0 release with a 4,096-token window that cuts long states by default, and its local server has no authentication.

## 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

### Strands Decider 2B

1. Pin the checkpoint by its full name, such as `StrandsAgents/strands-decider-2B-hobson-v21`, since each version is a separate Hugging Face repository
2. Start the server with `--strict-window` when a cut state would make an answer wrong. It then returns 422 naming the window
3. Ask every question about one state in one request. The state is read once and each question adds only its own tokens
4. Keep the server on 127.0.0.1 or put an authenticating proxy in front. It has no key option
5. Measure thresholds on your own traffic before acting automatically. The card says confidence bands hold for short classification only

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or Strands Decider 2B?

Strands Decider 2B scores 61.3 (C) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.

### Do Granite Switch 4.1 and Strands Decider 2B need an API key?

Neither needs a key.

### Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and Strands Decider 2B without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Strands Decider 2B.

### Are Granite Switch 4.1 and Strands Decider 2B open source?

Yes. Granite Switch 4.1 is open source (Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository). Strands Decider 2B is open source (Apache-2.0 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or Strands Decider 2B

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

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