GLM-4.6 vs Qwen3-Max
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.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Sep 2025
Alibaba's trillion-parameter API flagship — frontier-adjacent quality with strong agentic tool use at mid-tier prices.
The verdict
Qwen3-Max wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for GLM-4.6. GLM-4.6 is about 2.4x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 200K for GLM-4.6. 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 | Qwen3-Max | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 63.9 | 80.5 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.6 | $1.2 |
| Output price / 1M | $2.2 | $6 |
| Context window | 200K | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Open weights | yes (MIT) | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jul 2025 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Sep 2025 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $9.30 | $21.00 |
* 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 Qwen3-Max?
- Qwen3-Max wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for GLM-4.6. GLM-4.6 is about 2.4x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 200K for GLM-4.6. 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 Qwen3-Max?
- GLM-4.6 costs $0.6/$2.2 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Max costs $1.2/$6. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $9.30 versus $21.00.
- Which model is better for coding, GLM-4.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Qwen3-Max scores 69.6% versus 68% for GLM-4.6, making Qwen3-Max the stronger pick for coding agents.