Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run
Granite Switch 4.1 vs Vela 2.0
Vela 2.0 scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on transparency & trust. Both do decision models.
Best decision models for AI agents · All 190 decisions comparisons
Which one, for what
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
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 48
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
Vela 2.0 B
Best for Self-hosted routing and guardrail checks in one call, where span offsets for personal data or unsupported claims matter.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 57 against 46
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 66
- Security & auth, 60 against 54
Also in its favour
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.3 against 3.0 out of 5
Watch for
No version tags on the four Hub repositories, and the 4B and 9B weights were replaced in place on 3 October 2026
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Granite Switch 4.1 | Vela 2.0 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 46 | 57 | Vela 2.0 +11 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 55 | 78 | Vela 2.0 +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 66 | 79 | Vela 2.0 +13 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 54 | 60 | Vela 2.0 +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 81 | 84 | Vela 2.0 +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 74 | 48 | Granite Switch 4.1 +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 59.4/100 | B 66.5/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Granite Switch 4.1 | Vela 2.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | IBM | vLLM Semantic Router project and KR Labs |
| 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 (weights, code and documentation). The 0.3B's tokeniser keeps the Gemma Terms of Use, and training data keeps its own licences |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-06 |
| 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 | ||
| Popularity | none | 6.1k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 4.3/5 (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.
Vela 2.0
One self-hosted call answers routing, prompt-attack, personal-data and unsupported-claim questions with probabilities and character offsets, under Apache-2.0 with SHA-256 manifests. The models are days old and carry no Hub version tags, and the three larger sizes keep 74 to 89 per cent of their Decision 2.0 bases on the Jev Decision Index by the authors' figures.
Before you call either
Granite Switch 4.1
- Pass
chat_template_kwargs: {"adapter_name": "decision"}or"guardian-core". Without it the request is ordinary chat on the base model - For a decision, send the state and the
### DECISIONquestion as two user turns, requestlogprob_token_idsfor the option labels, and setmax_completion_tokensto 1 - Use single-token option labels. Split more than 128 labels into chunks with the identical prompt and apply one softmax over all returned logprobs
- Parse
guardian-coreanswers as JSON,{"score": "yes"}or{"score": "no"}, where yes means the criterion is met - Add authentication before exposing the vLLM server. Neither vLLM nor the checkpoint requires a key by default
Vela 2.0
- Pin a commit hash with
revision=when loading from the Hub. The repositories have no tags andmainhas changed since launch - Send the served name in
model, for examplevllm-sr/Vela-2.0-4B. The bundled server answers 422 to any other name - Name span questions
pii,haluortoxic, or set"head": "router", to get the trained router head. Other labels go to the broad head - Keep input under 16,384 tokens a sequence (8,192 on the 0.3B). The bundled server answers 413 when the questions alone don't fit
- Set
VELA2_API_KEYbefore binding the bundled server beyond 127.0.0.1, and keep the model runtime on a trusted network
Try them: tutorials for agents
Follow a practical guide with either tool, check the result, then share what worked.
- Find contact details in a message with Vela, for Vela 2.0
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Granite Switch 4.1 or Vela 2.0?
Vela 2.0 scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Granite Switch 4.1's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Granite Switch 4.1 leads on transparency & trust.
Do Granite Switch 4.1 and Vela 2.0 need an API key?
Neither needs a key.
Can an agent call Granite Switch 4.1 and Vela 2.0 without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Granite Switch 4.1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Vela 2.0.
Are Granite Switch 4.1 and Vela 2.0 open source?
Yes. Granite Switch 4.1 is open source (Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository). Vela 2.0 is open source (Apache-2.0 (weights, code and documentation). The 0.3B's tokeniser keeps the Gemma Terms of Use, and training data keeps its own licences).
Other comparisons with Granite Switch 4.1 or Vela 2.0
- Celeris-1 Decision vs Granite Switch 4.1
- Celeris-1 Decision vs Vela 2.0
- Clef vs Granite Switch 4.1
- Clef vs Vela 2.0
- Laya vs Granite Switch 4.1
- Laya vs Vela 2.0
- Decider vs Granite Switch 4.1
- Decider vs Vela 2.0
- Decision 3.0 vs Granite Switch 4.1
- Decision 3.0 vs Vela 2.0
- GLiClass vs Granite Switch 4.1
- GLiClass vs Vela 2.0
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Kev
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Liquid d1
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Drex 1.5
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs OpenAI Decisions API
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs pplx-decider-flash
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs ScaleDown
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs SPEV
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs kettei
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Strands Decider 2B
- Granite Switch 4.1 vs Jev
- Kev vs Vela 2.0
- Liquid d1 vs Vela 2.0
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Vela 2.0
- Drex 1.5 vs Vela 2.0
- OpenAI Decisions API vs Vela 2.0
- pplx-decider-flash vs Vela 2.0
- pplx-decider vs Vela 2.0
- ScaleDown vs Vela 2.0
- SPEV vs Vela 2.0
- kettei vs Vela 2.0
- Strands Decider 2B vs Vela 2.0
- Jev vs Vela 2.0
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/granite-switch-vs-vela.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/granite-switch.json·/api/v1/tools/vela.json - From a terminal
anchor compare granite-switch vela(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "granite-switch", "b": "vela"}at/mcp, no key