GLM and Z.AI alternatives ranked by benchmark quality, pricing, context window, and deployment model.
GLM alternatives are usually about keeping strong open-weight economics while checking whether another provider is better for coding, reasoning, or multilingual work. BenchLM ranks non-Z.AI replacements against GLM-5.2.
BenchLM uses GLM-5.2 as the default current GLM reference.
Direct answer
Sakana Fugu-Ultra is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It beats GLM-5.2 on BenchLM's general use score.
Sakana AI · Proprietary · 1M context
Sakana Fugu-Ultra is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It beats GLM-5.2 on BenchLM's general use score.
BenchLM fit
81.4
Score vs ref
111%
Token cost
Pricing unavailable
DeepSeek · Open Weight · 1M context
DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It retains about 92% of GLM-5.2's general use benchmark profile. Its blended token price is about 79% lower than GLM-5.2. It is also open-weight, so you can self-host or fine-tune it.
BenchLM fit
80.8
Score vs ref
92%
Token cost
79% cheaper
Alibaba · Proprietary · 1M context
Qwen3.7 Max is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It beats GLM-5.2 on BenchLM's general use score.
BenchLM fit
79.7
Score vs ref
107%
Token cost
Pricing unavailable
Poolside · Open Weight · 1M context
Laguna S 2.1 is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It still posts a credible 60 score for general use work on BenchLM. Its blended token price is about 95% lower than GLM-5.2. It is also open-weight, so you can self-host or fine-tune it.
BenchLM fit
77.7
Score vs ref
~82%
Token cost
95% cheaper
DeepReinforce AI · Open Weight · 256K context
Ornith-1.0-397B is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It retains about 96% of GLM-5.2's general use benchmark profile. Its blended token price is about 100% lower than GLM-5.2. It is also open-weight, so you can self-host or fine-tune it.
BenchLM fit
77.3
Score vs ref
~96%
Token cost
100% cheaper
Meta · Proprietary · 1M context
Muse Spark 1.1 is a strong GLM / Z.AI alternative. It beats GLM-5.2 on BenchLM's general use score.
BenchLM fit
77.2
Score vs ref
101%
Token cost
Pricing varies
BenchLM does not treat an alternative query like a generic leaderboard. This page starts from the tracked GLM-5.2 reference, then weights benchmark quality, token cost, context window, and deployment model to find realistic replacements.
That means a model can outrank the absolute leaderboard leader here if it stays close enough on benchmarks while being materially cheaper, more open, or better matched to the workflow implied by the query.
Change the goal, use case, or minimum context if this landing page is close but not exact.
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Sakana Fugu-Ultra is the current top pick on this page. It scores 81 in the selected BenchLM use-case weighting and 111% of GLM-5.2's benchmark profile, with pricing unavailable as the pricing summary.
Ornith-1.0-397B is the best low-cost candidate surfaced by this page. It ranks as a serious replacement while landing at 100% cheaper than the tracked GLM-5.2 reference.
Yes. DeepSeek V4 Pro (Max) is the strongest open-weight option on this page. BenchLM surfaces it because it combines self-hostable deployment with a 67 weighted score and 1M of context.
BenchLM uses GLM-5.2 as the tracked GLM / Z.AI reference here, then scores alternatives from benchmark performance first. Token cost, context window, and open-weight preference are used to break ties and surface better real-world replacements rather than just the raw leaderboard winner.