Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs GLM-5.3-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3-Flash by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GLM-5.3-Flash
GLM-5.3-Flash vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): the same intelligence, 95.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 6.5% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | GLM-5.3-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 41.8 | Even |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $305.52 | −95.6% GLM-5.3-Flash is 95.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 39.33s | +6.5% GLM-5.3-Flash is 6.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- GLM-5.3-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)GLM-5.3-FlashToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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