# Cloudflare Clef

21 Hacker News commenters recommended Cloudflare Clef and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-weight decision model people like for its open-source license, self-hosting and image input; critics say it is slower, costlier and less accurate than Jev.

## Why people recommend it

- Open source, runs locally (3 comments): "the value of Clef is mostly that it's open source and I can run it in my infra" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49975110)) "the first thing I've found local models genuinely useful for" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50057052)) "it becomes just plug and play. No dependencies needed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49926386))
- Beats Jev in benchmarks (3 comments): "clef beat Jev pretty handily, I think there was actually 0 instances where clef regressed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030411)) "If CF's benchmark is representative and sufficient, Clef outperforms Jev!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49926866)) "Only Liquid D1 and Clef matched Jev's performance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49991187))
- Accepts image input (2 comments): "Because Clef is a larger model, larger context, can process images." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49928153)) "It allows image input. Nice!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49924287))

## What people warn about

- Slower than Jev (8 comments): "I ported a Jev-based prototype i've been working on to Clef, and it ended up being significantly slower and the results were worse." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49932476)) "clef came out 5.2x more expensive, a lot slower (p50 of 350ms vs 1.9s) with only marginally better results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49926169)) "Clef was 2-3x slower and worse (it caught less hate speech) than Jev." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929048))
- Makes poor decisions in tests (3 comments): "By itself, it plays in ways you can likely imagine.. not well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49934210)) "Times the model sacrificed the individual to save the the five" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109366)) "Clef-flash: over-escalates" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49928781))
- Less accurate than Jev (4 comments): "I ported a Jev-based prototype i've been working on to Clef, and it ended up being significantly slower and the results were worse." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49932476)) "Clef was 2-3x slower and worse (it caught less hate speech) than Jev." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929048)) "Clef was worse in accuracy, and an order of magnitude slower." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031694))
- More expensive than Jev (4 comments): "The pricing is ... hm more expensive but not at the point I won't give it a try due to the embeded vision encoding" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49924297)) "clef came out 5.2x more expensive, a lot slower (p50 of 350ms vs 1.9s) with only marginally better results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49926169)) "Clef-flash is at $0.09 which is way more competitive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49924252))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Jev by Typesafe AI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jev.md): 392 recommend
- [Laya](https://hackerapproved.com/p/laya.md): 44 recommend
- [OpenJev](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openjev.md): 21 recommend
- [Typesafe AI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typesafe-ai.md): 16 recommend
- [Strands Decider 2B](https://hackerapproved.com/p/strands-decider-2b.md): 7 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Cloudflare Clef", https://hackerapproved.com/p/clef/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).