GLM-5.3 (Low) vs Kimi K3 (Max)

Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3 (Low) 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-5.3 (Low)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 34.30
Total cost: $1013

KimiKimi K3 (Max)Off the frontier

Intelligence: 43.60
Total cost: $3658

Verdict

Depends on your budget

Kimi K3 (Max) scores 9.3 points higher (43.6 vs 34.3) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $1013; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.3, and GLM-5.3 (Low) when 34.3 is enough.

Metric	GLM-5.3 (Low)	Kimi K3 (Max)	Difference
Intelligence (higher is better)	34.3	43.6	+27.1% Kimi K3 (Max) is 27.1% more intelligent
Total AA cost (lower is better)	$1,012.50	$3,658.07	+261.3% Kimi K3 (Max) is 3.6× more expensive
End-to-end time (lower is better)	30.79s	56.93s	+84.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 84.9% slower
Price per 1M tokens (in / out)	$1.40 / $4.40	$3.00 / $15.0
Input modalities	Text	Text, Image

Kimi K3 (Max) vs GLM-5.3 (Low): 27.1% more intelligence, 261.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.9% slower end-to-end.

Open this matchup in the interactive picker GLM-5.3 (Low): what beats it Kimi K3 (Max): what beats it

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.
Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.

GLM-5.3 (Low)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-5-3-low/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3-low/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill