Model comparison
GLM-5 vs Mercury 2
GLM-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.1 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2 costs 4.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GLM-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. GLM-5 scores higher in 7 categories and Mercury 2 in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where GLM-5 leads 52.3 to 36.2.
- Mercury 2 is cheaper at $0.25 / $0.75 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $3.20 for GLM-5.
- GLM-5 accepts more context: 205K tokens versus 128K.
- GLM-5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| GLM-5 | Mercury 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Inception |
| Noometry Index | 46.1 | 39.1 |
| Released | 2026-02-11 | 2026-02-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 205K | 128K |
| Max output | 131K | 50K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3.20 | $0.75 |
| Results tracked | 45 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 49.0 (#52), Mercury 2: 33.5 (#255)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1434 | 1171 |
| WeirdML | 48.2% | 43.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1461 | 1391 |
| ALE-Bench | 765.62 | 785.58 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.1% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 72.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 69.7% | — |
| SciCode | — | 38.7% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GLM-5: 31.1 (#71), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 52.4% | — |
| τ²-bench Airline | 82.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 9.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Retail | 73.7% | — |
| τ²-bench Telecom | 86.8% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,432 | — |
Reasoning GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 27.6 (#116), Mercury 2: 23.8 (#170)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1452 | 1362 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| SimpleBench | 53.2% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 74.8% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 44.7% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.8% |
| Chess Puzzles | 10% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.83 | — |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Not comparable
GLM-5: 46.4 (#71), Mercury 2: —
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 65.7% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1440 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 16.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 2.1% | — |
Knowledge GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 52.3 (#64), Mercury 2: 36.2 (#172)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.1% | 12.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1454 | 1358 |
| GPQA Diamond | 87.8% | — |
Multilingual GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 53.7 (#58), Mercury 2: 46.6 (#157)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1430 | 1331 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1511 | 1417 |
| LMArena Russian | 1436 | 1304 |
| LMArena French | 1455 | — |
| LMArena German | 1445 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1423 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1454 | — |
Instruction Following GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 75.2 (#67), Mercury 2: 70.2 (#165)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1428 | 1329 |
Long Context GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 44.7 (#60), Mercury 2: 40.5 (#154)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1446 | 1330 |
| CL-bench | 18.7% | — |
Writing & Preference GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 66.0 (#38), Mercury 2: 53.8 (#155)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Mercury 2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1446 | 1355 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1439 | 1289 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1358 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1601 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GLM-5 better than Mercury 2?
GLM-5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.1 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index. Mercury 2 costs 4.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GLM-5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GLM-5 or Mercury 2?
Mercury 2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $0.75 per million output tokens; GLM-5 lists at $1 and $3.20.
Is GLM-5 or Mercury 2 better for coding?
GLM-5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.0 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
GLM-5 does, with 205K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do GLM-5 and Mercury 2 share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. GLM-5 has 45 scored results on Noometry and Mercury 2 has 17.