Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) vs GLM-5.3-Flash
Which is better for the money: Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google or GLM-5.3-Flash by Z AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-04.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 26.4 points higher (54.2 vs 27.8) but costs 15× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $378; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when you need intelligence above 27.8, and GLM-5.3-Flash when 27.8 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | GLM-5.3-Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 54.2 | 27.8 | −48.7% GLM-5.3-Flash is 48.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,725.02 | $377.94 | −93.4% GLM-5.3-Flash is 93.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.28s | 36.61s | +124.9% GLM-5.3-Flash is 124.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.15 / $0.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
GLM-5.3-Flash vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low): 48.7% less intelligence, 93.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 124.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
- GLM-5.3-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Terra (High) scores 42.40 for $267.
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)GLM-5.3-FlashToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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