Model comparison

GLM-4.5-Air vs Step 3

Step 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

GLM-4.5-Air Z.ai (Zhipu)

38.9

Rank #177 Confirmed

Step 3 StepFun

40.5

Rank #149 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. GLM-4.5-Air scores higher in 3 categories and Step 3 in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Step 3 leads 40.1 to 33.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 43% for GLM-4.5-Air and 62.3% for Step 3.

Side by side

GLM-4.5-Air and Step 3 specifications
GLM-4.5-AirStep 3
ProviderZ.ai (Zhipu)StepFun
Noometry Index38.940.5
Released2025-07-20—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K—
Max output98K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.20—
Output $ / M tokens$1.10—
Results tracked2717

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Category by category

Coding Step 3 leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 33.3 (#259), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Coding13971367
GSO2.9%—

Reasoning Step 3 leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 24.1 (#166), Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
Kagi LLM Benchmark43%62.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts13791355
ForecastBench59.2—

Math Step 3 leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 36.2 (#170), Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Math13961366
Omni-MATH39.1%—

Knowledge Step 3 leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 35.0 (#191), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Expert13701333
Humanity's Last Exam8.1%—
MMLU-Pro76.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%—
GPQA (HELM)59.4%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GLM-4.5-Air: —, Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Vision—1177

Multilingual GLM-4.5-Air leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 49.1 (#135), Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Non-English13661327
LMArena Chinese14261397
LMArena German13771371
LMArena Korean13081269
LMArena Russian13731331
LMArena Spanish13861371
LMArena French1399—
LMArena Japanese1348—

Instruction Following Too close to call

GLM-4.5-Air: 69.6 (#171), Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Instruction Following13541332
IFEval81.2%—

Long Context GLM-4.5-Air leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 41.6 (#135), Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Longer Query13661326

Writing & Preference GLM-4.5-Air leads

GLM-4.5-Air: 55.9 (#139), Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGLM-4.5-AirStep 3
LMArena Text13841350
LMArena Creative Writing13431321
LMArena Multi-Turn13711341
WildBench78.9%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GLM-4.5-Air better than Step 3?

Step 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 38.9 on the Noometry Index.

Is GLM-4.5-Air or Step 3 better for coding?

Step 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.1 versus 33.3 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do GLM-4.5-Air and Step 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. GLM-4.5-Air has 27 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.

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