GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3 30B A3B
GLM 5.3 leads Qwen3 30B A3B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 44.8 to 7.6, and Qwen3 30B A3B costs 8.8x less per output token ($0.50 vs $4.40 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 43 benchmarks have a result for both.
GLM 5.3 or Qwen3 30B A3B: which to pick
Only GLM 5.3 has a coding score, 70.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3 30B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen3 30B A3B for output tokens 8.8x cheaper ($0.50 vs $4.40 per million).
- Shared results
- 43
- GLM 5.3 only
- 57
- Qwen3 30B A3B only
- 9
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GLM 5.3
GLM 5.3 leads, 44.8 against 7.6.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a AA Agentic Index result, 53.1.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a GPQA Diamond result, 88.1%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a MMLU Pro result, 86.8%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
GLM 5.3
GLM 5.3 leads, 1295 against 955.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a Vals Index result, 59.7%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
GLM 5.3
GLM 5.3 takes 1.05M tokens against 41K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 30B A3B
GLM 5.3 $0.0036, Qwen3 30B A3B $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has the number, $0.36.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GLM 5.3 70.6 from 6 benchmarks, Qwen3 30B A3B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 44.4 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Long context reasoning (AA-LCR): GLM 5.3 79.7% against Qwen3 30B A3B 0.0%, 79.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GLM 5.3 $4.40 against Qwen3 30B A3B $0.50 per million output tokens, 8.8x apart.
- Context window
- GLM 5.3 takes 1.05M tokens, Qwen3 30B A3B 41K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | GLM 5.3 | Bars | Qwen3 30B A3B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 3 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 6 | 0 | ||
| Math | 3 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 5 | 0 | ||
| General | 20 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 43 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index30
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 82.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1621 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 74.8 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 80.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 38.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 78.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 1.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 68.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 71.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 20.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 47.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 72.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 50.6% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| SciCode | 59.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 6.8% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| FrontierCode | 40.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 30.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| WeirdML | 75.4% | 29.8% | GLM 5.3 |
| ALE-Bench | 1317.4 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1497 | 1337 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1493 | 1340 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1641 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1595 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 44.8 | 7.6 | GLM 5.3 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.0 | 137.3 | GLM 5.3 |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index17 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 53.1 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1194 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1189 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1254 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench research | 73.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 0.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 35.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 9.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 39.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 49.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 14.6% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 56.3% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 5.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 26.0% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| APEX-Agents | 56.6% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $8,164 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 85.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 23.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 91.7% | 61.6% | GLM 5.3 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.3% | 6.2% | GLM 5.3 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.9% | 61.7% | GLM 5.3 |
| Chess puzzles | 37.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 33.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1490 | 1314 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1514 | 1314 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1496 | 1329 | GLM 5.3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 72.3 | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 72.3% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 91.1% | 62.8% | GLM 5.3 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 68.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 29.3% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| ProofBench | 49.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1495 | 1355 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1497 | 1363 | GLM 5.3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 72.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 42.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 77.7% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 41.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1498 | 1321 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1481 | 1318 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1473 | 1314 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1459 | 1309 | GLM 5.3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1295 | 955 | GLM 5.3 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1314 | 946 | GLM 5.3 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1311 | 899 | GLM 5.3 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1259 | 967 | GLM 5.3 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1332 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1304 | 942 | GLM 5.3 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1293 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1213 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench design | 77.3% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index200
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 59.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 70.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 68.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 88.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 41.5% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 0.0% | GLM 5.3 |
| DTBench | 87.7% | 60.3% | GLM 5.3 |
| LMCA | 55.5% | 15.8% | GLM 5.3 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 40.6% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 75.3% | Only Qwen3 30B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1474 | 1317 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1479 | 1283 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1458 | 1271 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: English | 1482 | 1335 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1459 | 1295 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1532 | 1347 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1488 | 1307 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1460 | 1254 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1460 | 1261 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1503 | 1352 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1462 | 1317 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1469 | 1291 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1466 | 1299 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1472 | 1307 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1483 | 1312 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1469 | 1290 | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1447 | 1258 | GLM 5.3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 30B A3B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 30B A3B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 30B A3B costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Z.ai GLM 5.3 | Qwen3 30B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 18, 2026 | April 28, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 41K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.40 | $0.12 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.40 | $0.50 |
| Coding index | 70.6 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.36 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GLM 5.3 better than Qwen3 30B A3B for coding?
Only GLM 5.3 has a coding score, 70.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3 30B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen3 30B A3B for output tokens 8.8x cheaper ($0.50 vs $4.40 per million).
Which is cheaper, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3 30B A3B?
GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3 30B A3B costs $0.12 and $0.50. Cost per solved task is known for GLM 5.3 only.
Which has the bigger context window, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3 30B A3B?
GLM 5.3, with 1.05M tokens against 41K.
How many benchmarks is the GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3 30B A3B comparison based on?
43 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. GLM 5.3's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 30B A3B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.