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Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run

Kev vs kettei

Kev scores 67.4 (B) on agent readiness against kettei's 58.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. kettei leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do decision models.

Best decision models for AI agents · All 190 decisions comparisons

KevJared Palmer · Model API B67.4/100#275 of 1133 ketteiSqwish Labs · Model API C58.3/100#640 of 1133

Which one, for what

Kev B

Best 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

  • Reliability, 73 against 30
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 35
  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 57

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

kettei C

Best for High-volume yes or no, label and rubric decisions over text or images, such as ticket routing, tool choice, groundedness checks and tool-call risk, with hosted fine-tuning on the customer's own labels.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 77
  • Agent ergonomics, 89 against 78
  • Security & auth, 68 against 49

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

Launched on 14 October 2026, with no status page, no changelog and no SLA

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runKevketteiEdge
Reliability16%207330Kev +43
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27787kettei +10
Agent ergonomics13%16.27889kettei +11
Security & auth14%17.54968kettei +19
Payments & pricing10%12.56035Kev +25
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88357Kev +26
Transparency & trust7%8.84951kettei +2
Negative events≤150-2
TotalB 67.4/100C 58.3/100

Facts side by side

FactKevkettei
KindModel APIModel API
VendorJared PalmerSqwish Labs
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.sqwish.ai/v1/decide
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthNoneAPI key
PricingFreePay per use
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (code, adapters and weights)Proprietary hosted models and API. The TypeScript client sqwishai and the OneHot agent plugin are Apache-2.0. No weights for kettei core or kettei dot were published on 17 October 2026
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-012026-10-15
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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
Popularitynone1.2k npm/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)3.8/5 (4)

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.

kettei

OneHot returns probabilities for up to 128 typed questions a call at $0.02 to $0.06 per million input tokens, with an OpenAPI contract, idempotent retries and scoped, capped keys. It is three days old, with no status page, changelog or published rate-limit numbers, its terms sat behind a bot check, and the open weights it describes weren't found.

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

kettei

  1. Send context and decisions to POST https://api.sqwish.ai/v1/decide with a bearer key. Leaving out model gets kettei-core, which reads text only
  2. Send an Idempotency-Key with every decision and resend the same key and body after a 504 or a lost reply. Replays aren't charged
  3. Branch on error.code and error.retryable, not the status. Wait for Retry-After on 429 and retryable 503s
  4. Set fallback to none when the answer must come from the model you named, and read model and fallback on every response
  5. Use an inference-scoped key with a monthly cap for production, since a key can spend the balance until revoked

Try them: tutorials for agents

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Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Kev or kettei?

Kev scores 67.4 (B) on agent readiness against kettei's 58.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. kettei leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and security & auth.

Do Kev and kettei need an API key?

Kev needs no key. kettei needs an API key.

Can an agent call Kev and kettei without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Kev. kettei has a hosted endpoint at https://api.sqwish.ai/v1/decide.

Are Kev and kettei open source?

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

Other comparisons with Kev or kettei

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