Zhipu AI's efficient mid-tier LLM — 128K context, strong coding ability, and pricing so low you'll question whether you need a flagship model at all.
GLM-4.6 sits one tier below GLM-5 in Zhipu AI's lineup, but don't let that fool you. For 80% of use cases — chatbots, code generation, document analysis, customer support — GLM-4.6 delivers output quality within 5-8% of the flagship at roughly 40% of the cost. The 128K context window handles most real-world documents, and the API is fully OpenAI-compatible.
Who it's for: Startups and SMBs running high-volume AI workloads where cost-per-token matters. Developers prototyping AI features. Teams that need GPT-4-class quality at GPT-3.5 pricing.
128,000 tokens of context — enough for a 300-page book or a mid-size codebase. Not as long as GLM-5's 200K, but sufficient for most document-heavy workflows.
GLM-4.6 scores 72% on HumanEval and excels at Python, JavaScript, and Java. Good for autocomplete, refactoring, and generating boilerplate — though not quite at GPT-5's level for complex multi-file edits.
At $0.20/M input and $0.60/M output tokens, GLM-4.6 is one of the cheapest models in its quality tier. Running a chatbot for 10,000 users/month can cost under $50.
Swap your base URL and keep your existing OpenAI SDK code. Function calling, streaming, and JSON mode all work the same way. Migration takes minutes, not days.
Native tool/function calling with parallel execution. Chain multiple API calls in a single response — GLM-4.6 can call 5+ tools in one turn and synthesize the results.
2M tokens/month free. Great for development, testing, and low-traffic production apps.
$0.20/M input tokens, $0.60/M output tokens. No monthly commitment. Among the cheapest in this quality tier.
The flagship. 200K context, multimodal, open weights. Worth the upgrade for complex tasks.
OpenAI's multimodal model. Better English quality, but 10x the cost per token.
Another budget-friendly Chinese LLM. Strong at reasoning and math, open weights.
Alibaba's open LLM. Comparable quality, fully open-source with self-hosting.