GLM 5 vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B
GLM 5 leads Qwen3.6 35B A3B on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 27.9 to 18.2, and Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs 3.2x less per output token ($1.00 vs $3.20 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 12 benchmarks have a result for both.
GLM 5 or Qwen3.6 35B A3B: which to pick
Only GLM 5 has a coding score, 41.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.6 35B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B for output tokens 3.2x cheaper ($1.00 vs $3.20 per million) and a larger context window (262K against 205K tokens).
- Shared results
- 12
- GLM 5 only
- 64
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B only
- 8
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GLM 5
GLM 5 leads, 27.9 against 18.2.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B has a AA Agentic Index result, 13.1.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only GLM 5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 83.3%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only GLM 5 has a AIME result, 91.7%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only GLM 5 has a MMLU Pro result, 86.0%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only GLM 5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1247.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
Qwen3.6 35B A3B takes 262K tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 35B A3B
GLM 5 $0.0026, Qwen3.6 35B A3B $0.0006 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GLM 5 has the number, $0.63.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GLM 5 41.7 from 3 benchmarks, Qwen3.6 35B A3B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 16.6 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench: GLM 5 52.4% against Qwen3.6 35B A3B 24.6%, 27.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GLM 5 $3.20 against Qwen3.6 35B A3B $1.00 per million output tokens, 3.2x apart.
- Context window
- GLM 5 takes 205K tokens, Qwen3.6 35B A3B 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 | Bars | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 3 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 1 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 10 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index30
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.8% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 69.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1435 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 41.9 | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 81.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 71.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 23.4% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 36.6% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 43.2% | 34.8% | GLM 5 |
| Terminal-Bench | 52.4% | 24.6% | GLM 5 |
| WeirdML | 48.2% | 34.5% | GLM 5 |
| ALE-Bench | 765.6 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1461 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1460 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1424 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1450 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 27.9 | 18.2 | GLM 5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.8 | 143.7 | GLM 5 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 13.1 | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1123 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1136 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1147 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1144 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1098 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 98.2% | 95.3% | GLM 5 |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $4,432 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 33 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 83.3% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 82.0% | 84.1% | Qwen3.6 35B A3B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 29.3% | 22.2% | GLM 5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 87.8% | 84.8% | GLM 5 |
| ARC-AGI | 44.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 53.2% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 22.0% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1452 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1454 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1460 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 91.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 80.0% | 86.7% | Qwen3.6 35B A3B |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 20.4% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1440 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1451 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 52.5% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.9% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 70.0% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.3% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1460 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1455 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1453 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1430 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1247 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1227 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1234 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1228 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1228 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1246 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1168 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1147 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 72.3% | 64.4% | GLM 5 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 75.7% | 71.7% | GLM 5 |
| DTBench | Not measured | 73.9% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 29.7% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| CL-bench | 18.7% | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 44.4% | Only Qwen3.6 35B A3B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1446 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1428 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1438 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1458 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1430 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1511 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1447 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1416 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1423 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1456 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1454 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1436 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1434 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1456 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1446 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1437 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1426 | Not measured | Only GLM 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GLM 5 | Qwen3.6 35B 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
Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.6 35B 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 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | February 11, 2026 | April 27, 2026 |
| Context window | 205K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.00 | $0.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $3.20 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 41.7 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.63 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GLM 5 better than Qwen3.6 35B A3B for coding?
Only GLM 5 has a coding score, 41.7 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.6 35B A3B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B for output tokens 3.2x cheaper ($1.00 vs $3.20 per million) and a larger context window (262K against 205K tokens).
Which is cheaper, GLM 5 or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
GLM 5 costs $1.00 per million input tokens and $3.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 35B A3B costs $0.10 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for GLM 5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, GLM 5 or Qwen3.6 35B A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B A3B, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the GLM 5 vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B comparison based on?
12 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GLM 5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.6 35B A3B's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.