GLM-5.3-Flash vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3-Flash by Z AI or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GLM-5.3-Flash
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs GLM-5.3-Flash: 34.0% less intelligence, 281.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 50.0% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | GLM-5.3-Flash | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 27.6 | −34.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 34.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $305.52 | $1,165.00 | +281.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.69s | 56.53s | +50.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 50.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.3-Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
GLM-5.3-FlashQwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today'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/glm-5-3-flash/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3-flash/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill