BenchLeader

GLM 5.3 Flash vs Kimi K3.1 Pro

Full profiles: GLM 5.3 Flash (Zhipu AI) and Kimi K3.1 Pro (Moonshot AI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 7 sources

As of 24 Oct 2026, GLM 5.3 Flash and Kimi K3.1 Pro are neck and neck on quality (62.6 vs 66.8 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±7.4 margin of error), and GLM 5.3 Flash costs 17× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Kimi K3.1 Pro leads in every category we measure both in.

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
Agents & tool useKimi K3.1 Pro67 vs 59 category score; CWE-Bench (AA) 60.8% vs 55.8%High
ReasoningKimi K3.1 Pro81 vs 66 category score; CritPt 24.6% vs 15.4%High
KnowledgeKimi K3.1 Pro75 vs 65 category score; AA-Omniscience 29.5 vs 7.5High
Long documentsKimi K3.1 Pro68 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR 86.3% vs 80.0%Medium
Images and other mediaKimi K3.1 Pro67 vs 64 category score; LiveBench Design 77.8% vs 77.2%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only GLM 5.3 Flash has an Arena rating (67 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costGLM 5.3 Flash$0.238 vs $4.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.011 vs $0.160–
Fastest first answerEither32.4 s (GLM 5.3 Flash) vs 27.7 s (Kimi K3.1 Pro) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • GLM 5.3 Flash and Kimi K3.1 Pro are neck and neck on quality (62.6 vs 66.8, within the ±7.4 margin).
  • GLM 5.3 Flash is stronger in coding, human preference, maths.
  • Kimi K3.1 Pro is stronger in agents & tools, composite, knowledge, long context, multimodal, reasoning.
  • GLM 5.3 Flash is 17× cheaper ($0.238 vs $4.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 Pro
DeveloperZhipu AIMoonshot AI
Released20 Aug 202623 Oct 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 Pro
Open weightsYesNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$0.150 / $0.500 / $0.030$2.00 / $10.00 / $0.200

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 ProLeader
Reasoning66.481.3Kimi K3.1 Pro
Coding62.9–not comparable
Agents & tools59.467.3Kimi K3.1 Pro
Maths68.7–not comparable
Knowledge64.974.8Kimi K3.1 Pro
Human preference66.7–not comparable
Multimodal63.867.0Kimi K3.1 Pro
Long context65.068.3Kimi K3.1 Pro
Composite64.975.8Kimi K3.1 Pro

Where sources disagree

Across the 25 benchmarks both have, GLM 5.3 Flash leads 2, Kimi K3.1 Pro leads 23. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3.1 Pro ahead.

Overall indexGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 ProLeader
BenchLeader Index62.666.8neck and neck
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.241.855.1Kimi K3.1 Pro

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 Pro
Blended price per 1M tokens$0.238$4.00
Input / output per 1M$0.150 / $0.500$2.00 / $10.00
Cached input per 1M$0.030$0.200
Price per task: chat reply$0.0002$0.0038
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.0021$0.030
Price per task: code edit$0.0017$0.027
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.011$0.160
Price per task: structured extraction$0.0004$0.0060
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$0.284$2.11
Output speed69 tok/s81 tok/s
Time to first answer32.4 s27.7 s
Time to a complete answer39.7 s33.9 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite GLM 5.3 Flash cost $0.284 and Kimi K3.1 Pro $2.11, because GLM 5.3 Flash used about 2.3× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. GLM 5.3 Flash scores 62.6 and takes 32 s to its first answer token; GLM 5.3 Flash (max) scores 54.2 in 32 s. Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 66.8 and takes 28 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

109 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 Pro
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader62.666.8
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader59.467.3
Coding scoreBenchLeader62.9–
Composite scoreBenchLeader64.975.8
Human preference scoreBenchLeader66.7–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader64.974.8
Long context scoreBenchLeader65.068.3
Maths scoreBenchLeader68.7–
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader63.867.0
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader66.481.3
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$0.238$4.00
Output speedBenchLeader69 tok/s81 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader32.4 s27.7 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.2%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1501–
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench77.6%91.1%
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench77.6%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis91.2%–
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis39.9%52.5%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI86.4%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize91.0%†–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize65.8%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis15.4%24.6%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub21.0%†–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub8.0%†–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.9%–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode51.6%–
FrontierCodeCognition31.8%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1525–
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1608–
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench80.6%81.8%
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench79.0%–
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis51.6%60.8%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI80.5%†–
IOIVals AI52.5%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI92.0%†–
Code MigrationVals AI20.5%†–
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI51.6%†–
Show all 109 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGLM 5.3 FlashKimi K3.1 Pro
Coding
ProgramBenchVals AI0.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI16.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI30.8%†–
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.5%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.4%†–
CursorBenchCursor36.8%†–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub303.6†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub18.1%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis32.8%67.2%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis84.3%–
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis41.0%47.1%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench35.8%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor52.8%–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)-1.6–
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench28.4%49.5%
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench84.0%80.0%
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench56.8%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI62.9%†–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis57.1%67.3%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis47.2%–
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis51.2%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis25.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI67.9%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI57.9%†–
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI60.6%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI10.4%†–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI6.7%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI45.2%†–
SkillsBenchVals AI40.2%†–
SREBenchVals AI0.8%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI31.6%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI37.4%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI2.9%†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis60.4%73.3%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis15.4%31.4%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey0.8%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis33.2%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis14531678
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis4.8%–
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis55.8%60.8%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis19.9%36.7%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis74.0%94.7%
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub55.8%†–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub17.1%†–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.9%†–
ProofBenchVals AI21.0%†–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench81.2%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1504–
Knowledge
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench76.4%79.1%
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench70.1%77.9%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench76.4%–
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis7.529.5
MMLU-ProVals AI86.1%†–
LegalBenchVals AI83.9%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.6%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI55.9%†–
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI66.3%†–
MedScribeVals AI88.9%†–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.0%†–
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis27.5%51.0%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis72.4%56.1%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench77.3%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench52.8%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1473–
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1476–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1434–
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1476–
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1481–
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1294–
LiveBench DesignLiveBench77.2%77.8%
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–83.9%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI86.0%†–
AA-3DArtificial Analysis935–
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis80.0%86.3%
MLCRArtificial Analysis11.7%–
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub153.1–
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench70.6%76.7%
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench71.6%–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis41.855.1
Vals IndexVals AI50.9†–
Vals Finance IndexVals AI55.8%†–
Vals Router IndexVals AI50.9%–
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis49.964.1
Metadata
AA Openness IndexArtificial Analysis44.4–

Data as of 2026-10-24. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Kimi K3.1 Pro: BenchLeader Index 65.6 → 66.8.
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: GLM 5.3 Flash cached input price moved from $0.034/M to $0.030/M (13% down).
  • Kimi K3.1 Pro: 5 new results (FrontierCode 1.1 (AA), AA Cyber Index, CWE-Bench (AA)…).
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: 1 new result (Vals Router Index).
  • Kimi K3.1 Pro: first results.
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: 1 score revision.
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: 1 score revision; GLM 5.3 Flash cached input price moved from $0.03/M to $0.03/M (15% up).
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: BenchLeader Index 62.4 → 62.9.
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: 6 new results (LiveBench 2.0, LiveBench Long Agentic, LiveBench 2.0 Coding…).
  • GLM 5.3 Flash: 1 score revision.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

GLM 5.3 Flash vs Kimi K3.1 Pro: questions

Is GLM 5.3 Flash better than Kimi K3.1 Pro?
GLM 5.3 Flash and Kimi K3.1 Pro are neck and neck on quality (62.6 vs 66.8, within the ±7.4 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-24, so check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, GLM 5.3 Flash or Kimi K3.1 Pro, and will that change?
GLM 5.3 Flash is cheaper today: $0.238 against $4.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is GLM 5.3 Flash better than Kimi K3.1 Pro for agents and tool use?
Kimi K3.1 Pro scores higher in agentic tasks (67 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On CWE-Bench (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 55.8% for GLM 5.3 Flash against 60.8% for Kimi K3.1 Pro.
Which is better for long documents?
Kimi K3.1 Pro scores higher on long-context benchmarks (68 vs 65). Both take about 1M tokens: GLM 5.3 Flash 1,000,000, Kimi K3.1 Pro 1,048,576.
Which has lower latency?
Kimi K3.1 Pro answers first: 27.7 s against 32.4 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Which is faster, GLM 5.3 Flash or Kimi K3.1 Pro?
Kimi K3.1 Pro streams faster: 81 against 69 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on GLM 5.3 Flash vs Kimi K3.1 Pro?
Across the 25 benchmarks both have, GLM 5.3 Flash leads 2, Kimi K3.1 Pro leads 23. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3.1 Pro ahead.
When was Kimi K3.1 Pro released?
Kimi K3.1 Pro was released on 23 Oct 2026.