Head to head · Decision models · October 2026 research run
Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Vela 2.0
Vela 2.0 scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Microsoft-Decision-1's 39 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do decision models. Microsoft-Decision-1 is cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens.
Best decision models for AI agents · All 91 decisions comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Routing, classification, prioritisation and rubric checks over text, where a fixed set of options and a low price per token matter more than generated text.
Also in its favour
- Cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens
Watch for
Public preview only. Microsoft's post gives no general availability date and states no licence for the hosted model
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 30
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 50
- Security & auth, 60 against 52
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 48 against 32
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- Open source
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 | Microsoft-Decision-1 | Vela 2.0 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 30 | 57 | Vela 2.0 +27 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 43 | 78 | Vela 2.0 +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 50 | 79 | Vela 2.0 +29 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 52 | 60 | Vela 2.0 +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 60 | Vela 2.0 +40 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 40 | 84 | Vela 2.0 +44 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 32 | 48 | Vela 2.0 +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | E 39/100 | B 66.5/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Microsoft-Decision-1 | Vela 2.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Microsoft | vLLM Semantic Router project and KR Labs |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Price for decision models | free | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Not stated. The announcement and OpenRouter's model page name no licence, and no weights repository was found. | 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 | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 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 | 6.1k stars |
Verdicts
Microsoft-Decision-1
Microsoft publishes $0.042 per million input tokens, with output free, and the model is callable through Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter. It is in public preview. No licence, model-specific retention statement, rate limit or deprecation policy was found, and the Foundry route needs an Azure deployment and an Entra token. Latency and accuracy figures are Microsoft's claims.
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
Microsoft-Decision-1
- Use OpenRouter's Decisions method, not an OpenAI chat-completions SDK. OpenRouter says chat completions SDKs will not work with this model
- On Foundry, send the request to the deployment's /providers/microsoft/v1/systemone path with a Microsoft Entra token for https://cognitiveservices.azure.com/.default, not an API key
- Take the deployment name from the Foundry quickstart before the first call. Microsoft says to confirm the route and authentication header, and the pages reviewed do not give the name
- Keep each request within OpenRouter's 32,768-token context and send only fixed options, since the model is not intended for open-ended generation
- Measure latency and calibration on your own labelled cases before relying on Microsoft's latency and 'nine times out of 10' statements
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
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Microsoft-Decision-1 or Vela 2.0?
Vela 2.0 scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Microsoft-Decision-1's 39 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Which is cheaper for decision models, Microsoft-Decision-1 or Vela 2.0?
Microsoft-Decision-1, at free against free for Vela 2.0. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.
Do Microsoft-Decision-1 and Vela 2.0 need an API key?
Microsoft-Decision-1 takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Vela 2.0 needs no key.
Can an agent call Microsoft-Decision-1 and Vela 2.0 without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Microsoft-Decision-1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Vela 2.0.
Are Microsoft-Decision-1 and Vela 2.0 open source?
No open-source release is listed for Microsoft-Decision-1. 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 Microsoft-Decision-1 or Vela 2.0
- Celeris-1 Decision vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Celeris-1 Decision vs Vela 2.0
- Clef vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Clef vs Vela 2.0
- Laya vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Laya vs Vela 2.0
- Decider vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Decider vs Vela 2.0
- GLiClass vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- GLiClass vs Vela 2.0
- Kev vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Kev vs Vela 2.0
- Liquid d1 vs Microsoft-Decision-1
- Liquid d1 vs Vela 2.0
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Drex 1.5
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs OpenAI Decisions API
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs pplx-decider
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Strands Decider 2B
- Microsoft-Decision-1 vs Jev
- Drex 1.5 vs Vela 2.0
- OpenAI Decisions API vs Vela 2.0
- pplx-decider vs Vela 2.0
- Strands Decider 2B vs Vela 2.0
- Jev vs Vela 2.0
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-vela.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/microsoft-decision-1.json·/api/v1/tools/vela.json - From a terminal
anchor compare microsoft-decision-1 vela(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "microsoft-decision-1", "b": "vela"}at/mcp, no key