Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Low) scores 13.3 points higher (39.4 vs 26.1) but costs 1.0× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $1487; both premium class). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GLM-5.1 (Reasoning).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 26.1 | −33.8% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 33.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $1,486.78 | −4.7% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 4.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.79s | 63.24s | +436.4% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 436.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.28 / $4.07 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 33.8% less intelligence, 4.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 436.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/glm-5-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/glm-5-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill