# pplx-decider vs Strands Decider 2B

> pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) to Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C) for decision models. pplx-decider is cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-strands-decider
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-strands-decider.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-strands-decider.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-strands-decider.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: 2026-10-09

pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Strands Decider 2B leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do decision models. pplx-decider is cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens.

- pplx-decider: grade B, 62.9/100, rank #417 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pplx-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pplx-decider.json
- Strands Decider 2B: grade C, 61.3/100, rank #471 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/strands-decider.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/strands-decider.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 66 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md

## Which one, for what

### pplx-decider (B)

Good for: High-volume classification, routing and rubric scoring over text and images where a team wants a low hosted price and the option to run the same weights itself.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 61 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 76
- Agent ergonomics, 76 against 69
- Security & auth, 61 against 49

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for decision models, $0 against $0 per 1M tokens
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: The Decisions API was released in October 2026, so its incident record is days long, and Perplexity's FAQ says it gives no uptime guarantee

### Strands Decider 2B (C)

Good for: Cheap, local classification, routing, triage and tool-call checks on short text inside Strands or other Python agents, and for teams who want to retrain a decision model from a published recipe.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 62

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

Watch for: Version 0.1.0, described as experimental in its package metadata, with no changelog file


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | pplx-decider | Strands Decider 2B | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 61 | 50 | pplx-decider +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 76 | pplx-decider +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 69 | pplx-decider +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 49 | pplx-decider +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | Strands Decider 2B +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 79 | Strands Decider 2B +17 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 54 | Strands Decider 2B +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.9 · B** | **61.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | pplx-decider | Strands Decider 2B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Perplexity | Amazon Web Services (Strands Agents) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Price for decision models | free | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the published weights. The hosted Decisions API is a proprietary service | Apache-2.0 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (1) |

## Verdicts

**pplx-decider.** The hosted Decisions API has an OpenAPI description, typed questions, documented limits and a published price of $0.02 per million input tokens, and the v1.1 weights are public under Apache-2.0. The API is days old, the official Python SDK has no method for it, and the governing terms and privacy notice could not be read on 9 October 2026.

**Strands Decider 2B.** A 1.9B-parameter Apache-2.0 decision model that runs on a laptop GPU, an Apple silicon Mac or a CPU, with its training data, recipe and per-version results published. It's an experimental 0.1.0 release with a 4,096-token window that cuts long states by default, and its local server has no authentication.

## Before you call either

### pplx-decider

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer`. A key in `x-api-key` returns 401 on this endpoint.
2. Set `model` on every request. A missing or unknown model returns 400, and the guide shows a `-latest` name rejected.
3. Resize images to 2,048 tiles of 32 by 32 pixels or fewer before sending. Larger images end in a 504 after about a minute.
4. Check the HTTP status before parsing an error. 404 and 405 have empty bodies, 504 can be HTML, and `error.code` changes type.
5. For the weights, use the repository's `autojev` code. The card says default causal inference does not reproduce the evaluated setup.

### Strands Decider 2B

1. Pin the checkpoint by its full name, such as `StrandsAgents/strands-decider-2B-hobson-v21`, since each version is a separate Hugging Face repository
2. Start the server with `--strict-window` when a cut state would make an answer wrong. It then returns 422 naming the window
3. Ask every question about one state in one request. The state is read once and each question adds only its own tokens
4. Keep the server on 127.0.0.1 or put an authenticating proxy in front. It has no key option
5. Measure thresholds on your own traffic before acting automatically. The card says confidence bands hold for short classification only

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, pplx-decider or Strands Decider 2B?

pplx-decider scores 62.9 (B) on agent readiness against Strands Decider 2B's 61.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Strands Decider 2B leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Which is cheaper for decision models, pplx-decider or Strands Decider 2B?

pplx-decider, at free against free for Strands Decider 2B. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do pplx-decider and Strands Decider 2B need an API key?

pplx-decider needs an API key. Strands Decider 2B needs no key.

### Can an agent call pplx-decider and Strands Decider 2B without installing anything?

pplx-decider has a hosted endpoint at https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/decisions. No hosted endpoint is listed for Strands Decider 2B.

### Are pplx-decider and Strands Decider 2B open source?

No open-source release is listed for pplx-decider. Strands Decider 2B is open source (Apache-2.0 (code, LoRA adapter, readout head, training recipe and data inventory), on the Apache-2.0 Qwen3.5-2B-Base).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with pplx-decider or Strands Decider 2B

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