# Drex 1.5 vs pplx-decider-flash

> Drex 1.5 scores 69.5 (B) to pplx-decider-flash's 67.9 (B) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

Drex 1.5 scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against pplx-decider-flash's 67.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. pplx-decider-flash leads on transparency & trust. Both do decision models.

- Drex 1.5: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #194 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nace-drex.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nace-drex.json
- pplx-decider-flash: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #260 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pplx-decider-flash.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider-flash.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

### 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 66
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 25

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.

### pplx-decider-flash (B)

Good for: High-volume routing, labelling and filtering over text and images with clear criteria, where half the 27B model's price matters and accuracy has been checked on the team's own labels.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 61

Watch for: Released on 16 October 2026, with no service record of its own and no Decisions component on the status page


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Drex 1.5 | pplx-decider-flash | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 66 | Drex 1.5 +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 89 | pplx-decider-flash +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 81 | Drex 1.5 +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 68 | pplx-decider-flash +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 25 | Drex 1.5 +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 67 | pplx-decider-flash +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 71 | pplx-decider-flash +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.5 · B** | **67.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Drex 1.5 | pplx-decider-flash |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Nace AI, Inc. (Nace.AI) | Perplexity |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://console.nace.ai/v1/systemone` | `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for decision models | not published | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | 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. | Apache-2.0 for the published weights and inference code. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-09 |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-09 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 318 npm/wk, 156 PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | 3.3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**pplx-decider-flash.** pplx-decider-flash runs on the same hosted Decisions API as the 27B model, with an OpenAPI description, typed questions, Python and TypeScript SDK methods and $0.01 per million input tokens, and its weights are public under Apache-2.0. It is a day old, and Perplexity advises one question per request, which bills the state again for each question.

## Before you call either

### 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.

### pplx-decider-flash

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer` with `model` set to `pplx-decider-flash-v1.2`. A key in `x-api-key` returns 401.
2. Send one question per request by default. Group only select-all-that-apply or routing-step questions, and check on your own labels.
3. Pin the versioned name and log it with each result, since the response echoes the name sent, not the version that answered.
4. Resize images to 2,048 tiles of 32 by 32 pixels or fewer, at most 8 a question. Larger images end in a 504 after about a minute.
5. Compare it with `pplx-decider-v1.2` on a labelled sample at your thresholds before choosing it.

## Tutorials

- [Detect an urgent incident with Drex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/nace-drex/), for Drex 1.5

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Drex 1.5 or pplx-decider-flash?

Drex 1.5 scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against pplx-decider-flash's 67.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. pplx-decider-flash leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Drex 1.5 and pplx-decider-flash need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Drex 1.5 and pplx-decider-flash without installing anything?

Yes. Drex 1.5 has a hosted endpoint at https://console.nace.ai/v1/systemone and pplx-decider-flash at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Drex 1.5 or pplx-decider-flash

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

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