GLM-4.6 vs OpenAI o3
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Z.ai (Zhipu) · Sep 2025
The budget coding-agent favorite of late 2025 — near-Sonnet coding utility with MIT weights and a $3/month plan.
OpenAI · Apr 2025
OpenAI's dedicated 2025 reasoning model that pioneered thinking-with-images and agentic tool use within chain-of-thought.
The verdict
OpenAI o3 wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for GLM-4.6. On price the gap is dramatic: GLM-4.6 works out roughly 3.5x cheaper per blended million tokens. And GLM-4.6 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–3
Specs & pricing
| GLM-4.6 | OpenAI o3 | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 63.9 | 68.9 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.6 | $2 |
| Output price / 1M | $2.2 | $8 |
| Context window | 200K | 200K |
| Max output | 128K | 100K |
| Open weights | yes (MIT) | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text | text, image |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jul 2025 | May 2024 |
| Released | Sep 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $9.30 | $32.00 |
* 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, GLM-4.6 or OpenAI o3?
- OpenAI o3 wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for GLM-4.6. On price the gap is dramatic: GLM-4.6 works out roughly 3.5x cheaper per blended million tokens. And GLM-4.6 is open-weights (MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, GLM-4.6 or OpenAI o3?
- GLM-4.6 costs $0.6/$2.2 per million input/output tokens, while OpenAI o3 costs $2/$8. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $9.30 versus $32.00.
- Which model is better for coding, GLM-4.6 or OpenAI o3?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — OpenAI o3 scores 69.1% versus 68% for GLM-4.6, making OpenAI o3 the stronger pick for coding agents.