Model comparison
GLM-5 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 45.9 on the Noometry Index. GLM-5 costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. GLM-5 scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 5 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 40.8 to 27.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 80% for GLM-5 and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- GLM-5 is cheaper at $1 / $3.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 205K.
- GLM-5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Z.ai (Zhipu) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 45.9 | 51.1 |
| Released | 2026-02-11 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 205K | 262K |
| Max output | 131K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3.20 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 45 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
GLM-5: 49.0 (#47), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.6 (#50)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 72.1% | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1434 | 1482 |
| LMArena Coding | 1461 | 1472 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 72.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 69.7% | — |
| WeirdML | 48.2% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 765.62 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
GLM-5: 30.9 (#65), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 4,432 | 4,254 |
| Terminal-Bench | 52.4% | — |
| τ²-bench Airline | 82.5% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 9.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Retail | 73.7% | — |
| τ²-bench Telecom | 86.8% | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GLM-5: 27.6 (#100), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 40.8 (#47)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SimpleBench | 53.2% | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 74.8% | 74.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 10% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | 1457 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.84 | 149.27 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 4.9% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 44.7% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GLM-5: 44.8 (#66), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 52.2 (#40)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1440 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 16.4% | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 2.1% | 4.2% |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 65.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
GLM-5: 52.2 (#59), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#35)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.8% | 87.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1454 | 1476 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.1% | — |
Multilingual Too close to call
GLM-5: 53.9 (#57), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.3 (#46)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1430 | 1436 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1511 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1455 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1436 | 1444 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1452 | 1452 |
| LMArena German | 1445 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1421 | — |
Instruction Following Too close to call
GLM-5: 75.4 (#64), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.8 (#51)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1427 | 1437 |
Long Context Too close to call
GLM-5: 44.6 (#58), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#59)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1446 | 1457 |
| CL-bench | 18.7% | — |
Writing & Preference GLM-5 leads
GLM-5: 66.2 (#38), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 64.0 (#58)
| Benchmark | GLM-5 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1446 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1438 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1456 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1601 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is GLM-5 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 45.9 on the Noometry Index. GLM-5 costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, GLM-5 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
GLM-5 is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $3.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is GLM-5 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (49.0 vs 48.6); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks do GLM-5 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
25 benchmarks have published results for both models. GLM-5 has 45 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.