# Kev vs kettei

> Kev scores 67.4 (B) to kettei's 58.3 (C) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-sqwish-kettei
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-sqwish-kettei.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-sqwish-kettei.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-sqwish-kettei.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 required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

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.

- Kev: grade B, 67.4/100, rank #275 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jaredpalmer-kev.json
- kettei: grade C, 58.3/100, rank #640 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/sqwish-kettei.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/sqwish-kettei.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

### 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:
- 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)

Good 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

| Category | Weight | Kev | kettei | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 30 | Kev +43 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 87 | kettei +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 89 | kettei +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 49 | 68 | kettei +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 35 | Kev +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 57 | Kev +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 51 | kettei +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **67.4 · B** | **58.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Kev | kettei |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Jared Palmer | Sqwish Labs |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.sqwish.ai/v1/decide` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-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 documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-15 |
| 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 | 1.2k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (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

## Tutorials

- [Classify a delivery problem with Kev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/jaredpalmer-kev/), for Kev

## 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.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Kev or kettei

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

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