Step 3.5 Flash vs GLM-5

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Step 3.5 Flash finishes one point ahead overall, 66 to 65. That is enough to call, but not enough to treat as a blowout. This matchup comes down to a few meaningful edges rather than one model dominating the board.

Step 3.5 Flash's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 47.1 against 41.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 45 to 35. GLM-5 does hit back in multimodal & grounded, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Step 3.5 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for GLM-5.

Quick Verdict

Pick Step 3.5 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GLM-5 only becomes the better choice if multimodal & grounded is the priority.

Agentic

GLM-5

Step 3.5 Flash

60.2

GLM-5

62.3

62
Terminal-Bench 2.0
63
66
BrowseComp
67
54
OSWorld-Verified
58

Coding

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

47.1

GLM-5

41.1

77
HumanEval
80
48
SWE-bench Verified
46
45
LiveCodeBench
35
49
SWE-bench Pro
46

Multimodal & Grounded

GLM-5

Step 3.5 Flash

66.7

GLM-5

69.2

64
MMMU-Pro
66
70
OfficeQA Pro
73

Reasoning

GLM-5

Step 3.5 Flash

78.3

GLM-5

79.4

82
SimpleQA
84
82
MuSR
82
83
BBH
83
74
LongBench v2
77
73
MRCRv2
73

Knowledge

GLM-5

Step 3.5 Flash

60.8

GLM-5

62.1

84
MMLU
88
83
GPQA
86
81
SuperGPQA
84
79
OpenBookQA
82
76
MMLU-Pro
74
12
HLE
13
71
FrontierScience
74

Instruction Following

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

87

GLM-5

85

87
IFEval
85

Multilingual

Step 3.5 Flash

Step 3.5 Flash

82.8

GLM-5

82.1

86
MGSM
84
81
MMLU-ProX
81

Mathematics

GLM-5

Step 3.5 Flash

84.5

GLM-5

84.8

85
AIME 2023
88
87
AIME 2024
90
86
AIME 2025
89
81
HMMT Feb 2023
84
83
HMMT Feb 2024
86
82
HMMT Feb 2025
85
84
BRUMO 2025
87
85
MATH-500
82

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

Step 3.5 Flash is ahead overall, 66 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 45 and 35.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

GLM-5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.1 versus 60.8. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 47.1 versus 41.1. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

GLM-5 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 84.8 versus 84.5. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

GLM-5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 79.4 versus 78.3. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

GLM-5 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.3 versus 60.2. Inside this category, OSWorld-Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

GLM-5 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.2 versus 66.7. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 85. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Step 3.5 Flash or GLM-5?

Step 3.5 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.8 versus 82.1. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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