Agnes AI vs Grab AI Assistant vs MERaLiON vs SEA-LION
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Agnes AI
Singapore model lab with a free multimodal API, paid Token Plans and o...
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Grab AI Assistant
Grab's in-app AI concierge for food, dining out and everyday errands
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MERaLiON
Singapore's national audio-language models for Southeast Asian speech
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SEA-LION
AI Singapore's open-weight LLMs tuned for Southeast Asian languages
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.1 / 10 | 6.5 / 10 | 7 / 10 | 8.2 / 10 |
| Capability | — | — | ||
| Value for money | — | — | ||
| Ease of use | — | — | ||
| ASEAN readiness | — | — | ||
| API quality | — | — | ||
| Pricing | Freemium | Free | Open Source | Open Source |
| Free tier | Free API key: agnes-3.0-flash text, image 2.x flash and video 2.5 flash currently $0; text capped at 10 requests/min since 23 Sep 2026 | Included free in the Grab app; the consumer assistant launched in Singapore only, other markets promised by end-2026 | Weights free on Hugging Face under the MERaLiON Public Licence; hosted API by registration with tier quotas, no prices published | All weights free on Hugging Face; a free trial API key at 10 requests a minute for proofs of concept |
| Paid from | Token Plan from $4/mo ($40/yr); app plans from $2.99/mo on iOS; paid API models per token | — | — | No paid tier: production runs on cloud partners at their own rates |
| Has API | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | — | — | — | Hundreds to low-thousands of monthly Hugging Face downloads per variant |
| Founded | — | 2026 | 2024 | 2023 |
| Maker | Singapore Sapiens Technology Pte. Ltd. (Sapiens AI) | Grab Holdings Limited | A*STAR Institute of Advanced Intelligence and Computing (IAIC) | AI Singapore |
| Verdict | Agnes AI has turned from a consumer workspace into a model company with an unusual developer offer: an OpenAI-compatible API whose flash text, image and video models currently cost nothing, Token Plans from $4 a month, a... |
Grab AI Assistant is a sensible move for a superapp: a chat box that turns "somewhere for eight with vegan options" into a table booking and a ride reminder, drawing on Grab's own data about places and users. It is free... |
MERaLiON is a purpose-built option for Singapore-accented and code-switched speech: an end-to-end audio model that handles Singlish, Hokkien and Southeast Asian languages, with free weights and a hosted OpenAI-compatible... |
SEA-LION is the open model family to start with for Southeast Asian language work: regularly updated, MIT-licensed in its newest releases, and evaluated on SEA-HELM, the regional benchmark its own team maintains. The Sep... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.