Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs GLM-5.3 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Low) by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… scores 14.6 points higher (48.9 vs 34.3) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($3983 vs $1013; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallb… when you need intelligence above 34.3, and GLM-5.3 (Low) when 34.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) | GLM-5.3 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.9 | 34.3 | −29.9% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 29.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,983.28 | $1,012.50 | −74.6% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 74.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.07s | 31.49s | +96.0% GLM-5.3 (Low) is 96.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.3 (Low) vs Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback): 29.9% less intelligence, 74.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
- GLM-5.3 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Fable 5.1 (Medium, Default Fallback)GLM-5.3 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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