Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GLM-5

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 46.1 on the Noometry Index. GLM-5 costs 3.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 35 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

GLM-5 Z.ai (Zhipu)

46.1

Rank #66 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 35 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 7 categories and GLM-5 in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 27.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 60.4% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 4.9% for GLM-5.
  • GLM-5 is cheaper at $1 / $3.20 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 205K.
  • GLM-5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GLM-5 specifications
Claude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
ProviderAnthropicZ.ai (Zhipu)
Noometry Index50.346.1
Released2026-02-172026-02-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M205K
Max output128K131K
Input $ / M tokens$3$1
Output $ / M tokens$15$3.20
Results tracked5745

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Category by category

Coding GLM-5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), GLM-5: 49.0 (#52)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
SWE-bench Verified75.2%72.1%
LMArena WebDev15221434
WeirdML66.1%48.2%
LMArena Coding15041461
ALE-Bench1,327765.62
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—72.8%
SWE-bench Multilingual—69.7%
SciCode46.8%—

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), GLM-5: 31.1 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
Terminal-Bench53.4%52.4%
Vending-Bench 27,2044,432
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
τ²-bench Airline—82.5%
τ²-bench Banking—9.8%
τ²-bench Retail—73.7%
τ²-bench Telecom—86.8%
DeepResearch Bench54.9%—
OSWorld72.1%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), GLM-5: 27.6 (#116)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
ARC-AGI-260.4%4.9%
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%74.8%
ARC-AGI-186.5%44.7%
Chess Puzzles13%10%
LMArena Hard Prompts14841452
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24145.83
ForecastBench6261
SimpleBench—53.2%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—75%
CritPt3.1%—
Thematic Generalization76.3%—
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—
DTBench89.9%—
LMCA46.5%—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), GLM-5: 46.4 (#71)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%80%
LMArena Math14621440
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%16.4%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%2.1%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—65.7%
ProofBench45%—

Knowledge Too close to call

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), GLM-5: 52.3 (#64)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
GPQA Diamond87.4%87.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%10.1%
LMArena Expert15001454
SimpleQA Verified35.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), GLM-5: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—
LMArena Document1482—

Multilingual Too close to call

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), GLM-5: 53.7 (#58)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
LMArena Non-English14401430
LMArena Chinese14911511
LMArena French14651455
LMArena German14281445
LMArena Japanese14201416
LMArena Korean14111423
LMArena Russian14401436
LMArena Spanish14641454

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), GLM-5: 75.2 (#67)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
LMArena Instruction Following14751428

Long Context Too close to call

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), GLM-5: 44.7 (#60)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
LMArena Longer Query14791446
CL-bench—18.7%

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), GLM-5: 66.0 (#38)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GLM-5
LMArena Text14581446
LMArena Creative Writing14351439
EQ-Bench Creative Writing18101601
LMArena Multi-Turn14641456
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than GLM-5?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 46.1 on the Noometry Index. GLM-5 costs 3.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GLM-5?

GLM-5 is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $3.20 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GLM-5 better for coding?

GLM-5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.0 versus 46.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GLM-5 share?

35 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and GLM-5 has 45.

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