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GLM-5 Review

GLM-5 is Zhipu AI's flagship open-source large language model family, designed for complex systems engineering and long-horizon agentic tasks with strong reasoning and coding capabilities.

shipped Jul 5, 2026paid
Domain rating72Monthly visits1.5K/mo
GLM-5 — product screenshot

Why it matters

1GLM-5.2, released in June 2026, features a 1-million-token context window.
2The model has approximately 745 billion parameters, with 44 billion active in its Mixture-of-Experts architecture.
3GLM-5.2 is open-source under the MIT license, with weights available on Hugging Face.
4Users report up to 6x cost savings compared to other proprietary models for similar performance.

About GLM-5

Business Model
Freemium SaaS
Usage Pricing
$0.001/token per token
Free Credits
20 million tokens for free
Headquarters
Beijing, China
Platforms
Web
Target Audience
Developers, AI researchers, businesses looking for AI solutions

Pricing Plans

Free Tier
0 / monthly
  • • 20 million tokens for free
  • • Access to basic features

Cost Examples

  • • Generate 1000 tokens: ~$1

Specs

API Docs

View Documentation →

API Available

Yes, public API

overview

What is GLM-5?

GLM-5 is a large language model (LLM) tool developed by Zhipu AI that enables software engineers, AI researchers, and businesses to perform complex systems engineering and long-horizon agentic tasks. Its latest iteration, GLM-5.2, released in June 2026, emphasizes long-horizon tasks and boasts a significant 1-million-token context window. GLM-5 is a multimodal, general-purpose LLM with approximately 745 billion parameters (44 billion active in its Mixture-of-Experts architecture). It is engineered for agentic intelligence, advanced multi-step reasoning, and frontier-level performance across various tasks, including autonomous software engineering, compliance, financial management, and creative writing. The model also includes AI image generation, AI audio generation, and advanced Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

features

Key Features of GLM-5

GLM-5 offers a suite of features designed for advanced AI applications, emphasizing transparency, performance, and versatility. Its open-source nature under the MIT license allows for broad adoption and customization.

  • Open weights for transparency and community-driven research.
  • Significant improvements in coding tasks, including autonomous software engineering.
  • Multimodal capabilities, encompassing AI image generation, AI audio generation, and advanced OCR.
  • Flexible fine-tuning options for specific enterprise needs.
  • High fidelity translations across multiple languages.
  • Strong reasoning capabilities for complex problem-solving.
  • 1-million-token context window for long-horizon tasks.
  • Agentic intelligence for autonomous planning, tool use, and multi-step workflows.
  • Low built-in moderation level for flexible and unrestricted outputs.

use cases

Who Should Use GLM-5?

GLM-5 is designed for a diverse range of users requiring advanced AI capabilities, particularly those focused on complex development and data analysis.

  • Software engineers and AI researchers: For autonomous software engineering, code generation, debugging, and multi-language support.
  • Indie developers and SMBs: For integrating advanced AI capabilities via APIs, including chat, vision, and embeddings, with cost-effective solutions.
  • Large enterprises (financial services, energy, manufacturing): For compliance, financial management, summarizing extensive documents, and agentic intelligence for multi-step workflows.
  • State-owned enterprises: For developing and providing large language models (LLMs) and foundation models (GLM family) with independent hardware training.
  • Content creators and analysts: For creative writing, research, analysis, and web search grounding to reduce hallucination.

how to use

How to Use GLM-5

GLM-5 can be accessed via its API or through its web platform, offering developers and users multiple entry points to its capabilities. The open-source nature of GLM-5.2 also allows for local deployment and fine-tuning.

  • 1Visit the Zhipu AI website (www.zhipuai.cn/en) to access the GLM-5 web interface.
  • 2Register for an account to utilize the free tier, which includes 20 million tokens.
  • 3Access the API documentation at https://z.ai/model-api for integration into custom applications.
  • 4Download the open weights for GLM-5.2 from Hugging Face for local deployment and fine-tuning under the MIT license.
  • 5Utilize the API for specific tasks such as chat, vision, image/video generation, web search, audio, and embeddings.
  • 6Configure safety settings for local deployments to customize moderation levels.

pricing

GLM-5 Pricing & Plans

GLM-5 operates on a freemium-SaaS model, offering a substantial free tier and usage-based pricing for higher consumption. This structure allows users to experiment with the model before committing to larger expenditures.

  • Free Tier: 0 (includes 20 million tokens for free).
  • Usage Pricing: $0.001/token per token for API calls.
  • Cost Example: Generating 1000 tokens costs approximately $1.

Pros

  • +1-million-token context window for extensive long-horizon tasks.
  • +Open-source under MIT license, allowing unrestricted use and fine-tuning.
  • +Strong performance in autonomous software engineering and coding tasks.
  • +Cost-effective, with users reporting significant savings compared to proprietary models.
  • +Low built-in moderation level for flexible and creative outputs.
  • +Trained on Huawei Ascend chips, ensuring hardware independence.
  • +Multimodal capabilities including image generation, audio generation, and OCR.

Cons

  • −May be slower than some premium proprietary AI models.
  • −Users have reported experiencing 429 errors due to API rate limits.
  • −Requires significant computational resources for self-hosting the full model weights.
  • −While cost-effective, capacity issues have been noted by some users.

Similar Tools

GLM-5 vs Competitors

GLM-5 is positioned as a robust open-source alternative to leading proprietary and open-source models, particularly excelling in long-horizon tasks and cost-effectiveness.

1
Llama 3↗

Meta's latest generation of open-source large language models, offering strong general-purpose reasoning and coding capabilities.

Llama 3 provides a highly capable and widely adopted open-source alternative with a large community, offering comparable or potentially superior general reasoning and coding to GLM-5, though self-hosting requires significant computational resources.

2
GemmaOn Stork

A family of lightweight, state-of-the-art open models from Google, built from the same research and technology used for Gemini.

Gemma provides strong reasoning and coding capabilities in a more compact package, making it efficient for deployment on less powerful hardware, but its smaller scale compared to GLM-5 might limit its performance on the most complex, long-horizon agentic tasks.

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