Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs GLM-5.3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or GLM-5.3 (Max) 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 (Max)
GLM-5.3 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): the same intelligence, 8.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 140.6% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | GLM-5.3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 44.8 | Even |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $2,503.48 | −8.4% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 8.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 31.61s | +140.6% GLM-5.3 (Max) is 140.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.40 / $4.40 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- GLM-5.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)GLM-5.3 (Max)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-medium/glm-5-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/glm-5-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill