Graph workflows vs. agent loops: 2.6x less tokens on a local 9B model
treble-maker123 · reddit · 2026-08-21
The author compared a standard ReAct-style loop against a graph workflow for an email triage task using Qwen 3.5 9B on an M1 MacBook Pro.
- Accuracy: The difference was small and not statistically significant.
- Efficiency: The graph workflow was significantly more efficient. ReAct loops narrated heavily, generating 2.6x more output tokens and taking about 1.5x longer in wall-clock time.
The author is curious if these results hold at different scales and seeks insights from those running LangGraph in production.
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