Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Z.ai: GLM Flash Latest
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-10-19.
| Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash | Z.ai: GLM Flash Latest | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | ~z-ai | |
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Benchmark Score | 67.8 | - |
| Input Price | $0.82/M | $0.05/M |
| Output Price | $4.12/M | $0.20/M |
| Context Window | 1,048,576 | 1,048,576 |
| Max Output | 65,536 | 943,718 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | ✓ | - |
| Benchmark Scores | ||
| ai_index | 67.5 | - |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, GLM Flash Latest costs $0.098 and Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $1.86, so GLM Flash Latest is about 18.9 times cheaper for the same work.
Both read up to 1,048,576 tokens at once, roughly 1,573 pages of text.
Only Gemini 3.8 Flash offers audio input.
Across the 20 tasks where they differ, Gemini 3.8 Flash scores higher on 18 (SQL Generation, Code Review, Code Completion and others), GLM Flash Latest on 2 (JSON Extraction, Bulk Data Labeling).
Gemini 3.8 Flash was released in September 2026 and GLM Flash Latest in August 2026.
Pick Gemini 3.8 Flash if you need audio input or the stronger all-round task scores; pick GLM Flash Latest if you need lower cost.
Costs use current list prices per million tokens; page counts assume about 0.75 words per token and 500 words per page.
Who wins by task?
| Task | Google: Gemini 3.8 Flash | Z.ai: GLM Flash Latest |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 141 | 134 |
| Code Review | 144 | 132 |
| Code Completion | 132 | 132 |
| Code Refactoring | 146 | 136 |
| Bug Fixing | 148 | 136 |
| Unit Test Generation | 132 | 124 |
| Code Documentation | 137 | 132 |
| Regex Writing | 125 | 120 |
| CI/CD Pipelines | 128 | 120 |
| Frontend Component Design | 130 | 122 |
| Data Analysis | 134 | 124 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 136 | 134 |
| ETL Scripting | 137 | 128 |
| JSON Extraction | 131 | 132 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 128 | 129 |
| OCR / Document Parsing | 134 | 131 |
| Table Extraction from PDFs | 134 | 131 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 148 | 138 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 126 | 124 |
| Blog Post Writing | 129 | 122 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →