GLM-5.3 (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GLM-5.3 (Max) 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 (Max) scores 33.6 points higher (44.8 vs 11.2) but costs 7.6× as much to run the benchmark ($2503 vs $329; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GLM-5.3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | GLM-5.3 (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 11.2 | −75.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 75.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,503.48 | $328.86 | −86.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 86.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.73s | 43.21s | +50.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 50.4% 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 (Max): 75.0% less intelligence, 86.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 50.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GLM-5.3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- 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 (Max)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/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/glm-5-3/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill