# Kev vs Drex 1.5

> Drex 1.5 scores 69.7 (B) to Kev's 67.4 (B) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-nace-drex
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-nace-drex.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-nace-drex.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-nace-drex.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
- Updated: 2026-10-10

Drex 1.5 scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Kev's 67.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Kev leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do decision models.

- Kev: grade B, 67.4/100, rank #254 of 954. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.json
- Drex 1.5: grade B, 69.7/100, rank #172 of 954. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nace-drex.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nace-drex.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 91 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Kev (B)

Good for: Self-hosted classification, routing, triage and rubric scoring where a probability matters, especially for teams already calling Jev who want the same API on their own hardware.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 65

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

Watch for: No package. `pip install kev` installs an unrelated 2021 ORM, so Kev runs from a Git clone with uv

### Drex 1.5 (B)

Good for: Routing, triage and yes or no gates inside an agent, where the caller supplies the options and acts on the probabilities. Suited to hosted use at a low per-token price, or to open weights where the licence fits.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 73
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 77
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 78
- Security & auth, 65 against 49
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 49

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The rank 1 claim comes from Nace's own run on Decision Index 0.3.1, and Drex is not on the public board for 0.3 or 0.2.1.


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Kev | Drex 1.5 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 80 | Drex 1.5 +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 88 | Drex 1.5 +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 85 | Drex 1.5 +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 65 | Drex 1.5 +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 40 | Kev +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 65 | Kev +18 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 63 | Drex 1.5 +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **67.4 · B** | **69.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Kev | Drex 1.5 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Jared Palmer | Nace AI, Inc. (Nace.AI) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://console.nace.ai/v1/systemone` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights) | Hosted API under the Nace AI Terms of Service, last updated 5 May 2026. Weights under the Nace AI Open RAIL-M licence (modified, version 1.0, October 2026), which is not an open-source licence. Businesses above $1 million in revenue or funding need a separate commercial licence, and competing products are excluded. The bundled code/kev package, derived from Jared Palmer's Kev (https://github.com/jaredpalmer/kev), and the GitHub repository are Apache-2.0, and the agent skill is MIT. |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 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 | 318 npm/wk, 156 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Kev.** Apache-2.0 code, adapters and heads on Apache-2.0 Qwen bases, with release tarballs and SHA-256 checksums for the 0.8B, 4B and 9B models. No package. `pip install kev` installs an unrelated 2021 ORM, so Kev runs from a Git clone with uv.

**Drex 1.5.** The hosted endpoint has a public OpenAPI document, published limits and pinned model versions, at $0.05 per million input tokens with no output charge. The #1 under 10B claim rests on Nace's own run, since Drex is absent from both public boards. Weights carry Open RAIL-M, which requires a commercial licence above $1 million in revenue or funding.

## Before you call either

### Kev

1. Install from the repository. The `kev` package on PyPI is an unrelated project
2. Pin a checkpoint with `@v1.0`, as in `jaredpalmer/kev-4b@v1.0`, so tuned thresholds keep their meaning
3. Keep states under 8,192 tokens on Kev-0.8B, 4B and 9B, or use Kev-27B for long documents
4. Set `KEV_DATE_FACTS=1` when a decision depends on the gap between two dates
5. Expect a 422 naming the token count when a state passes 65,536 tokens. The server refuses it instead of cutting it

### Drex 1.5

1. Call https://console.nace.ai/v1/systemone with Authorization: Bearer nace_sk_..., and pin model drex-v1.5 rather than drex-latest in production.
2. Stop on 402 insufficient_credit or 402 payment_required until credit is topped up or the unpaid invoice is paid.
3. Retry 429 and 529 after retry-after-ms. On a 422 for an unknown model, use one of the ids the error message lists.
4. Keep state below 131,072 tokens and the body below 1,048,576 bytes, and send at most 512 questions per request.
5. Keep the key on a server. A key in browser code is exposed, and the /v1 routes send no Access-Control-Allow-Origin header.
6. Check usage.input_tokens and the usage CSV after retries, since /v1/systemone documents no idempotency key.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Kev or Drex 1.5?

Drex 1.5 scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Kev's 67.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Kev leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do Kev and Drex 1.5 need an API key?

Kev needs no key. Drex 1.5 needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Kev and Drex 1.5 without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Kev. Drex 1.5 has a hosted endpoint at https://console.nace.ai/v1/systemone.

### Are Kev and Drex 1.5 open source?

Kev is open source (Apache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights)). No open-source release is listed for Drex 1.5.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Kev or Drex 1.5

- [Celeris-1 Decision vs Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-jaredpalmer-kev.md)
- [Celeris-1 Decision vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-nace-drex.md)
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- [Decider vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-nace-drex.md)
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- [Kev vs Liquid d1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-liquid-d1.md)
- [Kev vs Microsoft-Decision-1](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-microsoft-decision-1.md)
- [Kev vs OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-openai-decisions-api.md)
- [Kev vs pplx-decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-pplx-decider.md)
- [Kev vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Kev vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Kev vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-vela.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-nace-drex.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Drex 1.5](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-nace-drex.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs OpenAI Decisions API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-openai-decisions-api.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs pplx-decider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-pplx-decider.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-vela.md)