Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) 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 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 24.7 points higher (50.8 vs 26.1) but costs 4.9× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $1487; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 26.1, and GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) when 26.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 26.1 | −48.6% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 48.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $1,486.78 | −79.6% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 79.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.99s | 60.76s | +21.5% GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is 21.5% 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 (Max): 48.6% less intelligence, 79.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 21.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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