AI model comparison

GLM 5.3 FlashX vs Qwen3.8 27B

Side by side comparison of GLM 5.3 FlashX and Qwen3.8 27B on pricing, benchmark scores, context window, and more.

GLM-5.3-FlashX is the high-speed variant of Z.ai's GLM-5.3-Flash, a native multimodal model delivering inference speeds of up to 200 tokens/s.

Input / 1M
$0.37
Output / 1M
$1.25
Context
1.05M

Qwen3.8 27B is an open-weight dense vision-language model from Qwen.

Input / 1M
$0.04
Output / 1M
$1.25
Context
1M

Comparing image generators? Compare image models

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

qwen logo

Qwen3.8 27B

1.9x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

Not available

Not enough benchmark data

Larger context window

z-ai logo

GLM 5.3 FlashX

1.05M vs 1M tokens

Newer release

z-ai logo

GLM 5.3 FlashX

Released September 18, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXNot available
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B20.1

Coding index

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXNot available
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B68.1

Agentic index

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXNot available
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B45.8

Pricing

GLM 5.3 FlashX vs Qwen3.8 27B API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricz-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXqwen logoQwen3.8 27B
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.37$0.04
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$1.25$1.25
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.09$0.00
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashX$1.37
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B$0.70

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashX$16.10$7.70 cached
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B$6.17$5.12 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

z-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashX$58$16 cached
qwen logoQwen3.8 27B$8.35$3.09 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricz-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXqwen logoQwen3.8 27B
Context window1.05M tokens1M tokens
Max output131K tokens66K tokens
Input typesImage, Text, VideoImage, Text, Video
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsMax, High, LowExtra high, Medium, Low, None
Default reasoning effortMaxExtra high
Release dateSeptember 18, 2026August 14, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricz-ai logoGLM 5.3 FlashXqwen logoQwen3.8 27B
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsNot supportedSupported
JSON modeSupportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesNot supportedSupported
Deterministic seedNot supportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Qwen3.8 27B is 1.9x cheaper for a typical chat. GLM 5.3 FlashX has the larger context window (1.05M vs 1M tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is GLM 5.3 FlashX or Qwen3.8 27B cheaper?

Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Qwen3.8 27B costs $0.04 per 1M input tokens and $1.25 per 1M output tokens, while GLM 5.3 FlashX costs $0.37 per 1M input tokens and $1.25 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, GLM 5.3 FlashX or Qwen3.8 27B?

GLM 5.3 FlashX supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 1M for Qwen3.8 27B.

Can I use GLM 5.3 FlashX and Qwen3.8 27B at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see GLM 5.3 FlashX and Qwen3.8 27B answer side by side and keep the better response.

z-ai logoqwen logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to GLM 5.3 FlashX and Qwen3.8 27B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.