GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) vs Kimi K3 (Max)

Which is better for the money: GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) by Z AI or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.

Trade-off

Z AIGLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 26.10
Total cost: $1487

KimiKimi K3 (Max)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 43.60
Total cost: $3658

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Kimi K3 (Max) scores 17.5 points higher (43.6 vs 26.1) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $1487; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Kimi K3 (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GLM-5.1 (Reasoning).

Metric	GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)	Kimi K3 (Max)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	26.1	43.6	+67.0% Kimi K3 (Max) is 67.0% more intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$1,486.78	$3,658.07	+146.0% Kimi K3 (Max) is 2.5× more expensive
End-to-end time (lower is better)	60.76s	58.57s	−3.6% Kimi K3 (Max) is 3.6% faster
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$1.28 / $4.07	$3.00 / $15.0
Input modalities	Text	Text, Image

Kimi K3 (Max) vs GLM-5.1 (Reasoning): 67.0% more intelligence, 146.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 3.6% faster end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GLM-5.1 (Reasoning): what beats it Kimi K3 (Max): what beats it

Today's Pareto frontier

Against the frontier

GLM-5.1 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.

GLM-5.1 (Reasoning)Kimi K3 (Max)Today'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/glm-5-1/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-1/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill