Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX vs Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-11-07.
| Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX | Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | z-ai | |
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Input Price | $0.37/M | $0.30/M |
| Output Price | $1.25/M | $2.50/M |
| Context Window | 1,048,576 | 1,048,576 |
| Max Output | 131,072 | 65,536 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | - | ✓ |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, GLM 5.3 FlashX costs $0.68 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite costs $0.93, so GLM 5.3 FlashX is about 1.4 times cheaper for the same work.
Both read up to 1,048,576 tokens at once, roughly 1,573 pages of text.
Only Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite offers audio input.
Across the 10 tasks where they differ, GLM 5.3 FlashX scores higher on 10 (SQL Generation, Code Completion, Code Documentation and others).
GLM 5.3 FlashX was released in September 2026 and Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite in July 2026.
Pick GLM 5.3 FlashX if you need lower cost or the stronger all-round task scores; pick Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite if you need audio input.
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 | Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX | Google: Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 133 | 133 |
| Code Completion | 131 | 131 |
| Code Documentation | 131 | 131 |
| Regex Writing | 119 | 119 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 133 | 133 |
| JSON Extraction | 131 | 131 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 129 | 129 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 137 | 137 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 123 | 123 |
| Blog Post Writing | 121 | 121 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →