The Known Good Updated 4 Sep 2026 Subscribe
Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Z.ai: GLM 5 ·Google vs Z.ai

Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Z.ai: GLM 5 — head-to-head comparison

Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview profile Z.ai: GLM 5 profile All comparisons
Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview — Google
Quality
#16 of 65
83based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#70 of 338
85.5
Output tokens per second
Price
#249 of 442
$1.12
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.50 · Out $3.00
Cache hit price
#110 of 324
$0.050
per 1M tokens (−90%)
Context
#63 of 476
1.05M
tokens (~1,600 pages)
Z.ai: GLM 5 — Z.ai
Quality
#21 of 65
77based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#191 of 338
44.6
Output tokens per second
Price
#227 of 442
$0.93
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.60 · Out $1.92
Cache hit price
#174 of 324
$0.12
per 1M tokens (−80%)
Context
#287 of 476
205k
tokens (~300 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores 83 and Z.ai: GLM 5 scores 77 — a 6-point lead for Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview. They share 4 published evaluations, with Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview ahead on 3 and Z.ai: GLM 5 ahead on 1.

Blended pricing is $1.12 per 1M tokens for Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview and $0.93 for Z.ai: GLM 5 — Z.ai: GLM 5 is about 1.2× cheaper.

Throughput is 86 tokens per second for Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 45 for Z.ai: GLM 5, with time to first token at 4.7s and 1.9s. Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts 1.05M tokens of context against 205k.

Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview is proprietary; Z.ai: GLM 5 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted). 16 tracked hosts serve one or both.

Generated from tracked data on 4 Sep 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Known Good Index 83 based on 4 of 7 evaluations 77 based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $1.12 $0.93
Output tok/s 86 45
Context window 1.05M 205k
Providers 2 14
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Quality

Known Good Index and the capability indices, side by side

Index scores

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

MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Known Good Index 83 77
Coding Index 72 69
Openness Index 5 60
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview · marker = Z.ai: GLM 5 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond89 / 88
Mock AIME 2024–2596 / 80
SWE-bench Verified75 / 72
Terminal-Bench51 / 52

Right-hand figures read Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview / Z.ai: GLM 5. Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads on 3 of 4, Z.ai: GLM 5 on 1.

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.

MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Text Arena 1,446
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,458
The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

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.

MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Input $/1M $0.50 $0.60
Output $/1M $3.00 $1.92
Blended $/1M $1.12 $0.93
Cache read $/1M $0.050 $0.120
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.

MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Context window 1.05M 205k
Max output tokens 66k 128k
The Known Good

Speed & Latency

Mean throughput and time to first token across hosting providers, over successful measurements from the last 48 hours

Throughput and latency

Means across all tracked providers over successful measurements from the last 48 hours, derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry.

MetricGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewZ.ai: GLM 5
Output tokens/s 86 45
Time to first token 4.7s 1.9s
The Known Good

Providers

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

16 hosts
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider Google: Gemini 3 Flash Preview blendedGoogle: Gemini 3 Flash Preview tok/s Z.ai: GLM 5 blendedZ.ai: GLM 5 tok/s
Google AI Studio $0.56 72
Google · first party $0.56 66
Amazon Bedrock · first party $1.55 96
GMICloud $0.93 57
Baidu · first party $1.08 55
Z.AI · first party $1.55 48
Novita $1.55 46
Chutes $1.35 45
AtlasCloud $1.50 35
SiliconFlow $1.35 31
StreamLake $0.93 29
DeepInfra $0.97 22
Venice $1.55 22
DigitalOcean $1.55 8
Parasail $1.55
Phala $1.77

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 →