GLM-5.2 (Max) vs gpt-oss-20b (High)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.2 (Max) by Z AI or gpt-oss-20b (High) by OpenAI? 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
GLM-5.2 (Max) scores 24.7 points higher (33.7 vs 9.0) but costs 73× as much to run the benchmark ($2097 vs $28.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.2 (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | GLM-5.2 (Max) | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 33.7 | 9.0 | −73.3% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 73.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,097.29 | $28.81 | −98.6% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 98.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 29.78s | 16.48s | −44.7% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 44.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.05 / $0.22 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
gpt-oss-20b (High) vs GLM-5.2 (Max): 73.3% less intelligence, 98.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.2 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
GLM-5.2 (Max)gpt-oss-20b (High)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-5-2/gpt-oss-20b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-2/gpt-oss-20b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill