Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs GLM-5.3-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) 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 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 3.0 points higher (44.8 vs 41.8) but costs 8.9× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $306; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 41.8, and GLM-5.3-Flash when 41.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | GLM-5.3-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 41.8 | −6.7% GLM-5.3-Flash is 6.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $305.52 | −88.8% GLM-5.3-Flash is 88.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.70s | 38.89s | +206.2% GLM-5.3-Flash is 206.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.15 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GLM-5.3-Flash vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 6.7% less intelligence, 88.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 206.2% slower end-to-end.
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-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)GLM-5.3-FlashToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/glm-5-3-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/glm-5-3-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill