GLM-5.3 (Low) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3 (Low) by Z AI or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? 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 23.1 points higher (34.3 vs 11.2) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1013 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.3 (Low) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | GLM-5.3 (Low) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.3 | 11.2 | −67.3% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 67.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,012.50 | $328.86 | −67.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 67.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 31.40s | 42.11s | +34.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 34.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.40 / $4.40 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs GLM-5.3 (Low): 67.3% less intelligence, 67.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.1% slower 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.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
GLM-5.3 (Low)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3-low/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill