---
title: "Compare alternatives to GLM 5 · Undominated.ai"
canonical: https://undominated.ai/alternatives/z-ai__glm-5/
description: "9 alternatives score at least as high as GLM 5 and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 9 preserve recorded capabilities; 0 have named trade-offs."
---

# Compare alternatives to GLM 5 · Undominated.ai

> 9 alternatives score at least as high as GLM 5 and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 9 preserve recorded capabilities; 0 have named trade-offs.

# Alternatives to GLM 5

Z.ai · LMArena 1446.3 · $1.09/M on a balanced workload · prices as of 2026-10-06

 [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/) Comparison context

Choose up to three standard models in Compare.

Requirements and prompt length apply in Compare. This page keeps its stated price basis and workload controls.

## 9 models are higher-scoring or cheaper, with neither dimension worse.

Of the 144 models carrying both an independent score and a published price at the same delivery mode, **9** score at least as high as GLM 5 and cost no more under at least one listed workload, with at least one of those dimensions improved. **9** match or beat its recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

Dominance is not a property of a model. It is a property of a model, a capability lens and a workload, and all three are named on every row. Scores are LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset; prices are blended per million tokens. A higher score is not a drop-in replacement.

This page is built only while a candidate improves score or price without worsening the other under a listed workload. When that comparison no longer holds, it is not generated.

## Where it holds

| Workload | GLM 5 $/M | Recorded capabilities preserved | Recorded capability losses |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Balanced | $1.09 | 8 | 0 |
| Summarise | $0.617 | 9 | 0 |
| Chat | $1.15 | 6 | 0 |
| Code gen | $1.58 | 6 | 0 |
| Agentic | $0.598 | 7 | 0 |

Workload mixes are defined on the [methodology page](/methodology/). Cached input is priced at the cached rate, and reasoning tokens at the worse of the reasoning and output rates.

## What you would be replacing

| Intelligence | 1446.3 |
| --- | --- |
| Context window | 204K |
| Max output | 128K |
| Input modes | text |
| Tool use | yes |
| Extended reasoning | yes |

Preserving recorded capabilities requires matching or beating these fields. [Full record for GLM 5](/models/z-ai__glm-5/), or [check GLM 5 against the whole catalogue](/check/z-ai__glm-5/).

## Recorded capabilities preserved 9

Each option has a higher score or a lower price, with neither dimension worse under the listed workloads. It matches or beats GLM 5 on recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

| # | Model | Intelligence | $/M | Holds under |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [MiMo-V2.6-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-pro/) Xiaomi | 1491 +44.7 | $0.540 | Balanced −50% Summarise −46% Chat −58% Code gen −58% Agentic −59% |
| 2 | [GLM 5.3 Flash](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3-flash/) Z.ai | 1469.6 +23.3 | $0.238 | Balanced −78% Summarise −78% Chat −78% Code gen −78% Agentic −78% |
| 3 | [GLM 5.3](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3/) Z.ai | 1471.4 +25.1 | $1.00 | Balanced −8% Summarise −44% |
| 4 | [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4.1-flash/) DeepSeek | 1462.5 +16.2 | $0.182 | Balanced −83% Summarise −89% Chat −78% Code gen −77% Agentic −82% |
| 5 | [MiMo-V2.5-Pro](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.5-pro/) Xiaomi | 1465 +18.7 | $0.544 | Balanced −50% Summarise −46% Chat −58% Code gen −58% Agentic −59% |
| 6 | [MiMo-V2.6-Flash](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-flash/) Xiaomi | 1456.4 tie | $0.175 | Balanced −84% Summarise −83% Chat −87% Code gen −87% Agentic −87% |
| 7 | [Qwen3.7 Plus](/models/qwen__qwen3.7-plus/) Qwen | 1454.6 tie | $0.560 | Balanced −48% Summarise −52% Chat −45% Code gen −45% Agentic −48% |
| 8 | [Kimi K2.6](/models/moonshotai__kimi-k2.6/) Moonshot AI | 1455.5 tie | $0.961 | Balanced −11% Summarise −26% Agentic −9% |
| 9 | [GLM 5.2](/models/z-ai__glm-5.2/) Z.ai | 1470.4 +24.1 | $0.422 summarise | Summarise −32% |

## What this compares, and what it leaves out

 - Quality is LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset. The 95% confidence interval on a difference between two scores is about ±10.47 points, so a gap smaller than that is marked *tie* rather than an improvement — see [significance bands](/significance/).
 - 204 further models at this delivery mode carry a price but no independent score. They are absent from the comparison in both directions — unrated is not a zero, and an unmeasured model is neither an alternative nor a worse buy.
 - Retired models are never offered as an alternative, and a model only competes against its own delivery mode: batch trades latency for price, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
 - Nothing here measures latency, throughput, rate limits or how a model behaves on your prompts. Two models with the same index score are not interchangeable.
 - Models with no higher-scoring or cheaper alternative that is no worse on the other axis are on the [value frontier](/frontier/). Models with such an alternative are [listed here](/alternatives/).

## Continue your investigation

 - [Check requirements](/check/)
- [Compare exact differences](/compare/)
- [Set a quality floor](/cheapest-at/)
- [Inspect tier boundaries](/cliffs/)