The Known Good Updated 29 Jul 2026
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 ·DeepSeek vs Z.ai

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 vs Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — head-to-head comparison

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 profile Z.ai: GLM 5.1 profile All comparisons
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 — DeepSeek
Quality
#40 of 62
62based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#285 of 317
19.3
Output tokens per second
Price
#110 of 370
$0.35
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.20 · Out $0.80
Cache hit price
#11 of 238
$0.003
per 1M tokens (−99%)
Context
#255 of 375
164k
tokens (~300 pages)
Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — Z.ai
Quality
#12 of 62
88based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#138 of 317
53.0
Output tokens per second
Price
#235 of 370
$1.48
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.97 · Out $3.04
Cache hit price
#162 of 238
$0.18
per 1M tokens (−81%)
Context
#222 of 375
205k
tokens (~300 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 scores 62 and Z.ai: GLM 5.1 scores 88 — a 26-point lead for Z.ai: GLM 5.1. They share 2 published evaluations, with DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 ahead on 0 and Z.ai: GLM 5.1 ahead on 2.

Blended pricing is $0.35 per 1M tokens for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 and $1.48 for Z.ai: GLM 5.1 — DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 is about 4.2× cheaper.

Throughput is 19 tokens per second for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 and 53 for Z.ai: GLM 5.1, with time to first token at 1.4s and 1.8s. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 accepts 164k tokens of context against 205k.

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted); Z.ai: GLM 5.1 is proprietary. 19 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 3 serve both.

Generated from tracked data on 29 Jul 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Known Good Index 62 based on 4 of 7 evaluations 88 based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.35 $1.48
Output tok/s 19 53
Context window 164k 205k
Providers 3 19
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Quality

Known Good Index and the capability indices, side by side

Index scores

Each index is min-max normalised across tracked models and scaled 0–100 from published evaluations. We do not run these evaluations.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Known Good Index 62 88
Mathematics Index 57 92
Reasoning Index 61
Agentic Index 82
Openness Index 60 5
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 · marker = Z.ai: GLM 5.1 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond71 / 85
Mock AIME 2024–2549 / 92

Right-hand figures read DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 / Z.ai: GLM 5.1. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 leads on 0 of 2, Z.ai: GLM 5.1 on 2.

The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Arena ratings

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Text Arena 1,333 1,465
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,359 1,469
The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

Published pricing

USD per 1M tokens. Blended is a 3:1 input:output mix. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Input $/1M $0.20 $0.97
Output $/1M $0.80 $3.04
Blended $/1M $0.35 $1.48
Cache read $/1M $0.003 $0.179
The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input accepted and maximum output emitted

Context and output limits

Provider-declared limits, from metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Context window 164k 205k
Max output tokens 16k 128k
The Known Good

Speed & Latency

Median throughput and time to first token across hosting providers

Output speedTime to first token
Throughput and latency

Medians across all tracked providers, derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3Z.ai: GLM 5.1
Output tokens/s 19 53
Time to first token 1.4s 1.8s
The Known Good

Providers

Which hosts serve each model, and at what price and speed

19 hosts · 3 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 blendedDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 tok/s Z.ai: GLM 5.1 blendedZ.ai: GLM 5.1 tok/s
StreamLake $0.35 21 $1.48 43
Novita $0.62 20 $2.13 51
DeepInfra $0.46 12 $1.66 62
CoreWeave $2.15 146
Wafer $1.55 87
GMICloud $1.50 66
Parasail $2.15 66
Venice $2.37 64
Friendli $2.15 59
SiliconFlow $1.83 57
Crusoe $2.00 54
Baidu · first party $1.46 42
Phala $1.96 42
Z.AI · first party $2.15 42
Chutes $1.50 41
Nebius $2.15 29
AtlasCloud $1.94 27
DigitalOcean $1.81 20
Fireworks $2.15

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. A dash means that host does not serve that model.

The Known Good
Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →