Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs GLM-5.3-Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) 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 (Xhigh) scores 7.9 points higher (49.7 vs 41.8) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $306; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 41.8, and GLM-5.3-Flash when 41.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) | GLM-5.3-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.7 | 41.8 | −15.9% GLM-5.3-Flash is 15.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,867.76 | $305.52 | −94.8% GLM-5.3-Flash is 94.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.31s | 38.43s | +8.8% GLM-5.3-Flash is 8.8% 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 (Xhigh): 15.9% less intelligence, 94.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 8.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) 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 5 (Xhigh)GLM-5.3-FlashToday'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-xhigh/glm-5-3-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-xhigh/glm-5-3-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill