GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3 8
Verdict
- Qwen3 8 (max) leads on quality: 62.6 vs 60.0.
- GLM 5.3 (max) is stronger in human preference.
- Qwen3 8 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, knowledge, maths, reasoning, composite, long context, multimodal.
- GLM 5.3 (max) is 1.2× cheaper ($2.15 vs $2.67 per 1M blended).
- GLM 5.3 (max) streams 1.7× faster (66 vs 40 tokens per second).
| Metric | GLM 5.3 (max) | Qwen3 8 (max) |
|---|---|---|
| BenchLeader Index | 60.0 | 62.6 |
| Agents & tools score | 52.8 | 56.0 |
| Coding score | 64.3 | 66.5 |
| Human preference score | 68.9 | 68.4 |
| Knowledge score | 55.8 | 61.4 |
| Maths score | 60.0 | 62.4 |
| Reasoning score | 66.9 | 68.3 |
| Composite score | – | 67.5 |
| Long context score | – | 63.1 |
| Multimodal score | – | 66.8 |
| Blended price $/M | $2.15 | $2.67 |
| Output speed | 66 tok/s | 40 tok/s |
| Time to first answer | 33.5 s | 53.0 s |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | – |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 | 68.8% | – |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 29.3% | – |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 91.1% | – |
| SimpleQA Verified | 41.0% | – |
| Terminal-Bench | 41.8% | – |
| SciCode | 56.5% | 52.9% |
| WeirdML | 75.4% | – |
| ProofBench | 49.0% | 58.0% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | – | 156.6 |
| LMArena Text | 1486 | 1481 |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1509 | 1504 |
| LMArena Coding | 1526 | 1522 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1614 | 1671 |
| LMArena Vision | – | 1313 |
| LMArena Agent | 2.6 | 4 |
| LiveBench | – | 78.5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | – | 88.2% |
| LiveBench Coding | – | 72.9% |
| LiveBench Agentic Coding | – | 64.7% |
| LiveBench Mathematics | – | 91.3% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | – | 78.4% |
| LiveBench Language | – | 79.7% |
| AA Intelligence Index | – | 40.3 |
| AA-LCR | – | 78.3% |
| MMMU-Pro | – | 82.3% |
| AA-Omniscience | – | 3.4 |
| GPQA Diamond (AA) | – | 92.7% |
| Humanity's Last Exam (AA) | – | 43.0% |
| SciCode (AA) | – | 53.2% |
| LiveCodeBench | 80.5% | 87.8% |
| MMLU-Pro | 86.8% | 88.6% |
| IOI | 68.4% | 68.9% |
| LegalBench | 84.8% | 83.6% |
| CorpFin | – | 65.8% |
| TaxEval | 72.4% | 75.5% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 71.5% | 67.4% |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 95.4% | 85.6% |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.1% | 93.7% |
| Vals Index | 57.0 | 51.8 |
Data as of 2026-09-13. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.
GLM 5.3 vs Qwen3 8: questions
- Is GLM 5.3 better than Qwen3 8?
- Qwen3 8 (max) leads on quality: 62.6 vs 60.0. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Qwen3 8 (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-09-13, but check the category scores for your use.
- Is GLM 5.3 better than Qwen3 8 for coding?
- Qwen3 8 scores higher in coding (67 vs 64 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Is GLM 5.3 better than Qwen3 8 for agentic tasks?
- Qwen3 8 scores higher in agentic tasks (56 vs 53 on the category index, where 50 is average).
- Which is cheaper, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3 8?
- GLM 5.3 is cheaper: $2.15 against $2.67 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token.
- Which is faster, GLM 5.3 or Qwen3 8?
- GLM 5.3 streams faster: 66 against 40 output tokens per second.
- Which has the larger context window?
- Both accept 1M tokens of context.