GLM-5.3 (Low) vs gpt-oss-120b (High)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3 (Low) by Z AI or gpt-oss-120b (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-5.3 (Low) scores 22.7 points higher (34.3 vs 11.6) but costs 8.3× as much to run the benchmark ($1013 vs $123; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.3 (Low) when you need intelligence above 11.6, and gpt-oss-120b (High) when 11.6 is enough.
| Metric | GLM-5.3 (Low) | gpt-oss-120b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.3 | 11.6 | −66.2% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 66.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,012.50 | $122.71 | −87.9% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 87.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.07s | 11.44s | −63.2% gpt-oss-120b (High) is 63.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.15 / $0.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
gpt-oss-120b (High) vs GLM-5.3 (Low): 66.2% less intelligence, 87.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 63.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.3 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- gpt-oss-120b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
GLM-5.3 (Low)gpt-oss-120b (High)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-low/gpt-oss-120b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3-low/gpt-oss-120b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill