Head to Head

zai-org/GLM-5.1 vs GLM 5.1

Pricing, experience, and what the community actually says.

zai-org/GLM-5.1

zai-org/GLM-5.1

Starting at

$1.40 / 1M input tokens

Refund

Pay-as-you-go model; no refunds on consumed tokens. Unused credits may expire per provider terms.

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★ Our Pick

GLM 5.1

GLM 5.1

Starting at

$0.01 per 1k tokens (Input)

Refund

Credit-based system; non-refundable once consumed

Try Free →

Our Take

zai-org/GLM-5.1zai-org/GLM-5.1

“Worth it for developers and enterprises needing a highly capable, commercially permissive model for software engineering and complex multi-step agents, provided latency and token costs fit the budget.”

GLM-5.1 delivers frontier-level reasoning and coding performance under an open MIT license, but its high token cost and slower inference speed make it best suited for specialized, high-value tasks rather than high-volume, low-latency applications.

GLM 5.1GLM 5.1

“Yes for developers and enterprises targeting global markets, specifically those needing robust performance in East Asian languages without sacrificing reasoning quality.”

GLM 5.1 is a top-tier contender for users requiring deep Chinese-English bilingual proficiency and agentic reasoning. While it faces stiff competition in pure English creative writing, its logic and technical instruction-following are on par with the industry's leading models.

Pros & Cons

zai-org/GLM-5.1

✓Strong multi-step reasoning and coding performance
✓Commercially permissive MIT license
✓Large 200k context window
✓Open-weight with transparent architecture
✓High benchmark scores (Intelligence Index: 51)
✗Higher token pricing compared to many open models
✗Slower inference speed (~44 t/s)
✗High verbosity increases output costs
✗Text-only input/output requires separate vision models
✗Heavy hardware requirements for self-hosting

GLM 5.1

✓Top-tier bilingual (CN/EN) performance
✓Very low hallucination rate in technical tasks
✓Highly competitive token pricing
✓Excellent 2M context window stability
✗Safety filters can be overly restrictive
✗Prose can feel overly formal or 'dry'
✗Support documentation is best in Mandarin

Full Breakdown

Category
zai-org/GLM-5.1zai-org/GLM-5.1
GLM 5.1GLM 5.1

Overall Rating

4.2 / 5
★4.6 / 5

Starting Price

$1.40 / 1M input tokens
$0.01 per 1k tokens (Input)

Learning Curve

Moderate. Requires familiarity with OpenAI-compatible SDKs, prompt engineering for reasoning modes, and token budget management due to verbosity.
Medium. While the API is OpenAI-compatible, mastering the model's specific prompt sensitivities for complex reasoning takes a few days of experimentation.

Best Suited For

Software engineering teams, AI agent developers, and researchers requiring strong multi-step reasoning and open-weight deployment flexibility.
Software engineers building autonomous agents, researchers requiring long-context analysis, and businesses operating in bilingual environments.

Support Quality

Standard developer documentation and community support via GitHub and Hugging Face. No dedicated enterprise SLA is publicly advertised for the open-weight version.
Reliable for enterprise tiers with dedicated Slack/Lark channels; community support is active but primarily in Mandarin.

Hidden Costs

High verbosity can significantly increase output token consumption. Self-hosting requires substantial GPU infrastructure due to the 754B parameter size.
Storage fees for long-term vector embeddings if using their integrated RAG solution.

Refund Policy

Pay-as-you-go model; no refunds on consumed tokens. Unused credits may expire per provider terms.
Credit-based system; non-refundable once consumed

Platforms

Cloud API, Self-hosted (GPU), Hugging Face, ModelScope
Web API, Private Cloud Deployment, iOS/Android (via ChatGLM app)

Features

Watermark on Free Plan

✗ No
✓ Yes

Mobile App

✗ No
✓ Yes

API Access

✓ Yes
✓ Yes
zai-org/GLM-5.1 Review →Try Free →
GLM 5.1 Review →Try Free →