# GLM-5.3 vs Grok 4.20

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for GLM-5.3 and Grok 4.20 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/glm-5-3-vs-grok-4-20-beta
- Last updated: September 28, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick GLM-5.3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Grok 4.20 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- GLM-5.3 leads overall 65.44 to 59.76.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 67.4 for GLM-5.3 and 23.3 for Grok 4.20.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) in Agentic, with scores of 71.5% and 44.2%.
- GLM-5.3 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Grok 4.20 also has the larger context window at 2M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Z.AI | xAI |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 2M |
| Overall Score | 65.44 | 59.76 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 24 | 23 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.00 / $0.00 | $1.25 / $2.50 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 67.4 (Supported · #9/117)
- Grok 4.20 public-lane score: 23.3 (Supported · #95/117)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| terminalBench3 | 28.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 84.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ExploitGym | 15.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | 73.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AutomationBench | 48.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | 28.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | 62.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 71.5% | 44.2% | GLM-5.3 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 47.1% | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | Coming soon | 62.8% | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | Coming soon | 38.36% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 56.8 (Supported · #24/142)
- Grok 4.20 public-lane score: 22.4 (Supported · #115/142)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 88.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| terminalBench3 | 28.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | 66.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | 58% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | 19.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE | 78.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | 42.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| PostTrain Bench | 39.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VulcanBench v3 | 78.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OpenHarmony Bench | 60.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | 30.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 80.5% | 84.3% | Grok 4.20 |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 95.4% | 72.2% | GLM-5.3 |
| LiveCodeBench Pro | Coming soon | 74.2% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | Coming soon | 76.7% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 51.8% | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | Coming soon | 4.06% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 77.1 (#11/27)
- Grok 4.20 public-lane score: 41.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | Coming soon | 53.3% | Coming soon |
| ARC-AGI-3 | Coming soon | 0.1% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Grok 4.20 public-lane score: 35.6 (#45/50)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 75.2% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 60.9% | Coming soon |
| ERQA | Coming soon | 54.1% | Coming soon |
| SimpleVQA | Coming soon | 57.4% | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (MM) | Coming soon | 65.8% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: GLM-5.3
- GLM-5.3 public-lane score: 61.9 (Supported · #35/168)
- Grok 4.20 public-lane score: 49.3 (Supported · #62/168)

| Benchmark | GLM-5.3 | Grok 4.20 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 88.1% | 88.6% | Grok 4.20 |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 86.8% | 86.3% | GLM-5.3 |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 88.5% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 31.6% | Coming soon |
| HealthBench Hard | Coming soon | 20.3% | Coming soon |
| MedXpertQA (Text) | Coming soon | 50.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, GLM-5.3 or Grok 4.20?

GLM-5.3 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between GLM-5.3 and Grok 4.20?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 67.4 for GLM-5.3 and 23.3 for Grok 4.20.

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

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

### How many benchmarks does Grok 4.20 cover on BenchLM?

Grok 4.20 currently has 23 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.2](/compare/glm-5-2-vs-glm-5-3)
- [Grok 4.20 vs GLM-5.2](/compare/glm-5-2-vs-grok-4-20-beta)
- [GLM-5.3 vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/glm-5-3-vs-glm-5-3-flash)
- [Grok 4.20 vs GLM-5.3-Flash](/compare/glm-5-3-flash-vs-grok-4-20-beta)

## Explore More

- [GLM-5.3 profile](/models/glm-5-3)
- [Grok 4.20 profile](/models/grok-4-20-beta)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)