Model comparison

GLM-4.6 vs Step 3

GLM-4.6 and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (41.4 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

GLM-4.6 Z.ai (Zhipu)

41.4

Rank #135 Confirmed

Step 3 StepFun

40.5

Rank #149 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. GLM-4.6 scores higher in 6 categories and Step 3 in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in multilingual, where GLM-4.6 leads 53.5 to 46.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 47.4% for GLM-4.6 and 62.3% for Step 3.

Side by side

GLM-4.6 and Step 3 specifications
GLM-4.6Step 3
ProviderZ.ai (Zhipu)StepFun
Noometry Index41.440.5
Released2025-09-30—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window205K—
Max output131K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.60—
Output $ / M tokens$2.20—
Results tracked2917

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

GLM-4.6: 40.1 (#148), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Coding14491367
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)55.4%—
LMArena WebDev1340—
SciCode38.4%—
ALE-Bench340.82—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

GLM-4.6: 32.3 (#66), Step 3: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
Terminal-Bench24.5%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard72.4%—

Reasoning Step 3 leads

GLM-4.6: 23.7 (#172), Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
Kagi LLM Benchmark47.4%62.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts14401355
CritPt1.1%—

Math GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 39.1 (#111), Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Math14321366
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)3.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)2.1%—

Knowledge GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 40.2 (#124), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Expert14311333
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GLM-4.6: —, Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Vision—1177

Multilingual GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 53.5 (#66), Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Non-English14261327
LMArena Chinese14991397
LMArena German14471371
LMArena Korean14001269
LMArena Russian14191331
LMArena Spanish14361371
LMArena French1459—
LMArena Japanese1393—

Instruction Following GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 74.3 (#98), Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Instruction Following14101332

Long Context GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 43.4 (#94), Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Longer Query14221326

Writing & Preference GLM-4.6 leads

GLM-4.6: 61.1 (#90), Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.6Step 3
LMArena Text14401350
LMArena Creative Writing14111321
LMArena Multi-Turn14271341
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1411—

Frequently asked questions

Is GLM-4.6 better than Step 3?

GLM-4.6 and Step 3 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (41.4 vs 40.5), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Is GLM-4.6 or Step 3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (40.1 vs 40.1); test both on your own repository before choosing.

How many benchmarks do GLM-4.6 and Step 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. GLM-4.6 has 29 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.

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