The Known Good Updated 9 Sep 2026 Subscribe
Google: Gemma 3 27B vs Z.ai: GLM 5.2 ·Google vs Z.ai

Google: Gemma 3 27B vs Z.ai: GLM 5.2 — head-to-head comparison

Google: Gemma 3 27B profile Z.ai: GLM 5.2 profile All comparisons
Google: Gemma 3 27B — Google
Quality
#49 of 65
47based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#306 of 341
20.7
Output tokens per second
Price
#74 of 450
$0.17
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.08 · Out $0.45
Cache hit price
#112 of 344
$0.040
per 1M tokens (−50%)
Context
#384 of 487
131k
tokens (~200 pages)
Z.ai: GLM 5.2 — Z.ai
Quality
#10 of 65
91based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#98 of 341
71.9
Output tokens per second
Price
#275 of 450
$1.48
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.97 · Out $3.04
Cache hit price
#239 of 344
$0.19
per 1M tokens (−80%)
Context
#86 of 487
1.05M
tokens (~1,600 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, Google: Gemma 3 27B scores 47 and Z.ai: GLM 5.2 scores 91 — a 44-point lead for Z.ai: GLM 5.2. They share 2 published evaluations, with Google: Gemma 3 27B ahead on 0 and Z.ai: GLM 5.2 ahead on 2.

Blended pricing is $0.17 per 1M tokens for Google: Gemma 3 27B and $1.48 for Z.ai: GLM 5.2 — Google: Gemma 3 27B is about 8.6× cheaper.

Throughput is 21 tokens per second for Google: Gemma 3 27B and 72 for Z.ai: GLM 5.2, with time to first token at 1.6s and 1.5s. Google: Gemma 3 27B accepts 131k tokens of context against 1.05M.

Google: Gemma 3 27B is open weights under Open weights (restricted use); Z.ai: GLM 5.2 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted). 36 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 4 serve both.

Generated from tracked data on 9 Sep 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Known Good Index 47 based on 4 of 7 evaluations 91 based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.17 $1.48
Output tok/s 21 72
Context window 131k 1.05M
Providers 5 35
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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: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Known Good Index 47 91
Mathematics Index 49
Reasoning Index 40
Openness Index 60 60
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = Google: Gemma 3 27B · marker = Z.ai: GLM 5.2 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond48 / 92
Mock AIME 2024–2522 / 86

Right-hand figures read Google: Gemma 3 27B / Z.ai: GLM 5.2. Google: Gemma 3 27B leads on 0 of 2, Z.ai: GLM 5.2 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.

MetricGoogle: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Text Arena 1,358 1,464
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,365 1,469
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: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Input $/1M $0.08 $0.97
Output $/1M $0.45 $3.04
Blended $/1M $0.17 $1.48
Cache read $/1M $0.040 $0.193
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: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Context window 131k 1.05M
Max output tokens 118k 131k
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: Gemma 3 27BZ.ai: GLM 5.2
Output tokens/s 21 72
Time to first token 1.6s 1.5s
The Known Good

Providers

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

36 hosts · 4 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider Google: Gemma 3 27B blendedGoogle: Gemma 3 27B tok/s Z.ai: GLM 5.2 blendedZ.ai: GLM 5.2 tok/s
Phala $0.23 51 $1.70 43
Parasail $0.17 24 $2.15 82
DeepInfra $0.10 15 $0.76 43
Novita $0.14 13 $1.05 56
Nebius $0.15 8
Decart $3.23 200
CoreWeave $1.18 113
ModelRun $3.35 108
Crusoe $2.15 103
Fireworks $2.15 101
BaseTen $2.15 99
Mistral · first party $2.15 90
Friendli $2.15 83
Makora $1.14 78
Reka · first party $1.76 76
DigitalOcean $1.07 73
Venice $2.15 71
Baidu · first party $2.15 66
Together $2.15 63
Alibaba · first party $1.48 59
Cloudflare $2.15 58
Io Net $1.33 56
StreamLake $1.04 54
AtlasCloud $1.44 45
Inceptron $1.69 44
GMICloud $2.15 42
SiliconFlow $1.83 39
Wafer $1.94 39
Z.AI · first party $2.15 39
Sail Research $1.16 37
Ionstream $2.15 30
AkashML $1.18 27
Relace $1.07 22
Morph $1.42 19
Ambient $0.95 16
Chutes $1.93 4

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 →