# Claude Sonnet 5 vs GLM-5.3

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 5 and GLM-5.3 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-glm-5-3
- Last updated: September 21, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GLM-5.3 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Claude Sonnet 5 leads overall 69.56 to 66.97.
- The clearest category separation is in knowledge, where the averages are 66.8 for Claude Sonnet 5 and 61.8 for GLM-5.3.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SWE-bench (Vals) in Coding, with scores of 79.6% and 95.4%.
- GLM-5.3 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 5 | GLM-5.3 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Z.AI |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 1M |
| Overall Score | 69.56 | 66.97 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 24 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $2.00 / $10.00 | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 66.2 (Supported · #11/154)
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 68.7 (Supported · #8/154)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | GLM-5.3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 3.0 | 14.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | 84.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | 57.4% | 62.5% | GLM-5.3 |
| OSWorld-Verified | 81.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 74.5% | 71.5% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| ApprenticeBench | 16% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 88.2% | Coming soon |
| terminalBench3 | Coming soon | 28.3% | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | Coming soon | 84.5% | Coming soon |
| ExploitGym | Coming soon | 15.0% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | Coming soon | 73.0% | Coming soon |
| AutomationBench | Coming soon | 48.2% | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | Coming soon | 28.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Claude Sonnet 5
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 64.6 (Supported · #13/156)
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 62 (Supported · #19/156)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | GLM-5.3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 85.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 63.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multimodal | 28.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 80.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 42.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench32 | 61.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench CII v1 | 89.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.4% | 80.5% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 79.6% | 95.4% | GLM-5.3 |
| cursorBench40 | 34.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 88.2% | Coming soon |
| terminalBench3 | Coming soon | 28.3% | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 66.9% | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 58% | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | Coming soon | 19.0% | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE | Coming soon | 78.1% | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | Coming soon | 42.5% | Coming soon |
| PostTrain Bench | Coming soon | 39.8% | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | Coming soon | 78.3% | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | Coming soon | 60.8% | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | Coming soon | 30.2% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.4 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 75.8 (#9/19)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 77.4 (#14/49)
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | GLM-5.3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 88.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 77% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Claude Sonnet 5
- Claude Sonnet 5 public-lane score: 66.8 (Supported · #20/186)
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 61.8 (Supported · #29/186)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5 | GLM-5.3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| HLE | 57.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 43.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE-Verified | 31.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LABBench2 | 80.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.9% | 88.1% | Claude Sonnet 5 |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.5% | 86.8% | Claude Sonnet 5 |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 5 or GLM-5.3?

Claude Sonnet 5 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 5 and GLM-5.3?

The widest category gap is in knowledge, where the averages are 66.8 for Claude Sonnet 5 and 61.8 for GLM-5.3.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 5 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 5 currently has 26 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does GLM-5.3 cover on BenchLM?

GLM-5.3 currently has 24 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 5 vs GLM-5.2](/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-glm-5-2)
- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.2](/compare/glm-5-2-vs-glm-5-3)
- [Claude Sonnet 5 vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/claude-sonnet-5-vs-glm-5-3-flash)
- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/glm-5-3-vs-glm-5-3-flash)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 5 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-5)
- [GLM-5.3 profile](/models/glm-5-3)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)