GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3.5-9B
GLM 5.3 leads Qwen3.5-9B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 44.8 to 13.3, and Qwen3.5-9B costs 29.3x less per output token ($0.15 vs $4.40 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 11 benchmarks have a result for both.
GLM 5.3 or Qwen3.5-9B: which to pick
Only GLM 5.3 has a coding score, 70.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5-9B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen3.5-9B for output tokens 29.3x cheaper ($0.15 vs $4.40 per million).
- Shared results
- 11
- GLM 5.3 only
- 89
- Qwen3.5-9B only
- 4
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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 13.3.
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
No call
Only GLM 5.3 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1295.
Directional only
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 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5-9B
GLM 5.3 $0.0036, Qwen3.5-9B $0.0002 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, Qwen3.5-9B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 40.4 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- AA Coding Index: GLM 5.3 74.8 against Qwen3.5-9B 23.5, 51.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GLM 5.3 $4.40 against Qwen3.5-9B $0.15 per million output tokens, 29.3x apart.
- Context window
- GLM 5.3 takes 1.05M tokens, Qwen3.5-9B 262K.
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 | Qwen3.5-9B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 3 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 11 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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 | 23.5 | GLM 5.3 |
| 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 |
| SciCode | 59.0% | 29.5% | GLM 5.3 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 24.2% | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 9.2% | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| FrontierCode | 40.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 30.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| WeirdML | 75.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1317.4 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1497 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1493 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| 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 | Qwen3.5-9B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 44.8 | 13.3 | GLM 5.3 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.0 | 139.3 | GLM 5.3 |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index17 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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 | 86.8% | Only Qwen3.5-9B 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 index30
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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% | 80.6% | GLM 5.3 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.3% | 14.9% | GLM 5.3 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.9% | 79.0% | 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 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1514 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1496 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 91.1% | 61.7% | 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 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1497 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 41.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1498 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1481 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1473 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1459 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1295 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1314 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1311 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1259 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1332 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1304 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| 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 index30
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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 | 66.7% | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 79.7% | 70.0% | GLM 5.3 |
| DTBench | 87.7% | 71.2% | GLM 5.3 |
| LMCA | 55.5% | 24.5% | GLM 5.3 |
| LMArena Text | 1474 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1479 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1458 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1482 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1459 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1532 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1488 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1460 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1460 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1503 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1462 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1469 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1466 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1472 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1483 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1469 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1447 | Not measured | Only GLM 5.3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5.3 | Qwen3.5-9B | 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
Qwen3.5-9B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5-9B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5-9B 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 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 18, 2026 | March 10, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.40 | $0.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.40 | $0.15 |
| 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 Qwen3.5-9B for coding?
Only GLM 5.3 has a coding score, 70.6 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5-9B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen3.5-9B for output tokens 29.3x cheaper ($0.15 vs $4.40 per million).
Which is cheaper, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3.5-9B?
GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-9B costs $0.10 and $0.15. Cost per solved task is known for GLM 5.3 only.
Which has the bigger context window, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3.5-9B?
GLM 5.3, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3.5-9B comparison based on?
11 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. GLM 5.3's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5-9B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.