Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs GLM-5
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Google · Mar 2026
The cheapest Gemini 3 model: multimodal input and a 1M context for $0.25/$1.50 — built for massive-scale pipelines.
Z.ai (Zhipu) · Feb 2026
Z.ai's 744B open-weights MoE — within ~4 points of Opus 4.6 on SWE-bench Verified at $1/$3.20 per million tokens.
The verdict
These two models don't yet share verified results on the benchmarks we track, so judge them on specs, pricing and intended use. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is about 2.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite also takes 1M of context versus 200K for GLM-5. And GLM-5 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Specs & pricing
| Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | GLM-5 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | — |
| Input price / 1M | $0.25 | $1 |
| Output price / 1M | $1.5 | $3.2 |
| Context window | 1M | 200K |
| Max output | 66K | 128K |
| Open weights | no | yes (MIT) |
| Reasoning model | no | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image, audio, video | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Nov 2025 | Dec 2025 |
| Released | Mar 2026 | Feb 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $4.75 | $14.80 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or GLM-5?
- These two models don't yet share verified results on the benchmarks we track, so judge them on specs, pricing and intended use. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is about 2.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite also takes 1M of context versus 200K for GLM-5. And GLM-5 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or GLM-5?
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite costs $0.25/$1.5 per million input/output tokens, while GLM-5 costs $1/$3.2. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $4.75 versus $14.80.
- Which model is better for coding, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite or GLM-5?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.