The Known Good Updated 25 Jul 2026
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 ·DeepSeek vs Z.ai

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — head-to-head comparison

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 profile Z.ai: GLM 5.1 profile All comparisons
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 — DeepSeek
Quality
#44 of 61
44based on 3 of 6 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#280 of 316
20.9
Output tokens per second
Price
#105 of 340
$0.35
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.20 · Out $0.80
Cache hit price
#10 of 206
$0.003
per 1M tokens (−99%)
Context
#225 of 345
164k
tokens (~300 pages)
Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — Z.ai
Quality
#12 of 61
88based on 3 of 6 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#154 of 316
53.4
Output tokens per second
Price
#221 of 340
$1.48
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.97 · Out $3.04
Cache hit price
#136 of 206
$0.18
per 1M tokens (−81%)
Context
#195 of 345
205k
tokens (~300 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 scores 44 and Z.ai: GLM 5.1 scores 88 — a 44-point lead for Z.ai: GLM 5.1. They share 2 published evaluations, with DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 ahead on 0 and Z.ai: GLM 5.1 ahead on 2.

Blended pricing is $0.35 per 1M tokens for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 and $1.48 for Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 is about 4.2× cheaper.

Throughput is 21 tokens per second for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 and 53 for Z.ai: GLM 5.1, with time to first token at 1.1s and 1.9s. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 accepts 164k tokens of context against 205k.

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 is open weights under Open weights (restricted use); Z.ai: GLM 5.1 is proprietary. 19 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 3 serve both.

Generated from tracked data on 25 Jul 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Known Good Index 44 based on 3 of 6 evaluations 88 based on 3 of 6 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.35 $1.48
Output tok/s 21 53
Context window 164k 205k
Providers 3 19
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Quality

Known Good Index and the capability indices, side by side

IndicesComponents
Index scores

Each index is min-max normalised across tracked models and scaled 0–100 from published evaluations. We do not run these evaluations.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Known Good Index 44 88
Mathematics Index 40 92
Science Index 53 89
Reasoning Index 52
Agentic Index 82
Openness Index 60 5
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 · marker = Z.ai: GLM 5.1 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond57 / 85
MATH / AIME16 / 92

Right-hand figures read DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 / Z.ai: GLM 5.1. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 leads on 0 of 2, Z.ai: GLM 5.1 on 2.

The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Arena ratings

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Text Arena 1,333 1,465
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,358 1,470
The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

Per token typeCache discount
Published pricing

USD per 1M tokens. Blended is a 3:1 input:output mix. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Input $/1M $0.20 $0.97
Output $/1M $0.80 $3.04
Blended $/1M $0.35 $1.48
Cache read $/1M $0.003 $0.179
The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input accepted and maximum output emitted

Context and output limits

Provider-declared limits, from metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Context window 164k 205k
Max output tokens 16k 128k
The Known Good

Speed & Latency

Median throughput and time to first token across hosting providers

Output speedTime to first token
Throughput and latency

Medians across all tracked providers, derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Output tokens/s 21 53
Time to first token 1.1s 1.9s
The Known Good

Providers

Which hosts serve each model, and at what price and speed

19 hosts · 3 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 blendedDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 tok/s Z.ai: GLM 5.1 blendedZ.ai: GLM 5.1 tok/s
StreamLake $0.35 24 $1.48 25
DeepInfra $0.46 20 $1.66 66
Novita $0.62 14 $2.13 52
CoreWeave $2.15 120
Friendli $2.15 109
Crusoe $2.00 91
Fireworks $2.15 90
Venice $2.37 80
GMICloud $1.50 77
Parasail $2.15 71
SiliconFlow $1.83 62
Baidu · first party $1.50 51
Wafer $1.55 50
Chutes $1.50 48
AtlasCloud $1.94 42
Z.AI · first party $2.15 37
Nebius $2.15 26
DigitalOcean $1.81 21
Phala $1.96

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. A dash means that host does not serve that model.

The Known Good
Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →