Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3?

GLM-5.3 has the lowest input price. Per 1M input tokens: Claude Opus 4.8 from $5.00 and GLM-5.3 from $0.56.

Which has the larger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3?

GLM-5.3 has the largest context window: Claude Opus 4.8 1,000,000 tokens and GLM-5.3 1,048,576 tokens.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3?

GLM-5.3 scores highest on the Artificial Analysis Coding Index: Claude Opus 4.8 74.3 and GLM-5.3 74.8.

Which is smarter, Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3?

GLM-5.3 scores highest on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: Claude Opus 4.8 41.8 and GLM-5.3 44.8.

Can I switch between Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3 without changing my code?

Yes. All of them are served through FastRouter's OpenAI-compatible API, so switching is a change of the model parameter (anthropic/claude-opus-4.8, z-ai/glm-5.3).

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GLM-5.3

Side-by-side pricing per provider, context window, benchmark scores and speed, all on one OpenAI-compatible API.

Claude Opus 4.8 Anthropicanthropic/claude-opus-4.8

GLM-5.3 Z.aiz-ai/glm-5.3

Creator

Anthropic

Z.ai

Released

May 27, 2026

Aug 18, 2026

Context window

1.05M

Max output

128K

131K

Input / 1MLowest provider price

$5.00

$0.56$0.56–$1.40 across 5

Output / 1MLowest provider price

$25.00

$2.50$2.50–$4.40 across 5

Providers

IntelligenceArtificial Analysis index

41.8

44.8

CodingArtificial Analysis index

74.3

74.8

LatencyMedian time to first token

19s

—

ThroughputMedian tokens per second

<1 t/s

—

Accepts

Text, Image, Files

Text

Produces

Text

Tool calling

Yes

Structured output

Yes

Reasoning

Yes

Claude Opus 4.8 vs GLM-5.3: summary

Claude Opus 4.8 and GLM-5.3 are both available through FastRouter's OpenAI-compatible API, so switching between them is a change of model id, not a new integration.

Claude Opus 4.8, from Anthropic, has a 1,000,000-token context window, costs from $5.00/1M input and $25.00/1M output tokens across 3 providers and scores 41.8 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

GLM-5.3, from Z.ai, has a 1,048,576-token context window, costs from $0.56/1M input and $2.50/1M output tokens across 5 providers and scores 44.8 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

GLM-5.3 is the cheapest on input, 8.9× cheaper than the next model, GLM-5.3 has the largest context window, GLM-5.3 scores highest for intelligence and GLM-5.3 leads on coding.

Switch with one line

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.fastrouter.ai/api/v1", api_key="<FASTROUTER_API_KEY>") client.chat.completions.create(model="anthropic/claude-opus-4.8", messages=[...]) # or client.chat.completions.create(model="z-ai/glm-5.3", messages=[...])

Full API docs

Frequently asked questions

More comparisons

Benchmark scores sourced from ArtificialAnalysis