ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

GLM-5 vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Qwen3.7 Max

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B comes out ahead, 65 to 58 and 55 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Z.ai (Zhipu)

    GLM-5

    Released Feb 12, 2026

    55/100
    • ECI145.8
    • Price$1.00 / $3.20
    • Context205K
    Full specs Remove GLM-5
  2. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.7 Max

    Released May 21, 2026

    58/100
    • ECI153.7
    • Price$2.50 / $7.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.7 Max
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is our pick

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 65/100 against Qwen3.7 Max (58) and GLM-5 (55). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3.7 Max wins on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.7 MaxCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Max 153.7 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 · GLM-5 145.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 · GLM-5 $1.55 · Qwen3.7 Max $3.75 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.7 MaxQwen3.7 Max 1,000,000 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 · GLM-5 204,800 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17BGLM-5: Text · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video · Qwen3.7 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingGLM-5 and Qwen3.5 397B-A17BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGLM-5Qwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.7 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%737483
Price25%414423
Inputs & features15%359035
Context window10%323760
Overall100%55/10065/10058/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

GLM-5 vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Qwen3.7 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationGLM-5Z.ai (Zhipu)Qwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.7 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)145.8146.7153.7 (best)
ECI rank#74 of 148#67 of 148#37 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions87.8%86.4%90.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—31.2%64.6% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics80.0%88.9%95.6% (best)
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues72.1%—77.3% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——55.8%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.00$0.60 (best)$2.50
Output$3.20 (best)$3.60$7.50
Cached input$0.20 (best)—$0.50
Blended (3:1)$1.55$1.35 (best)$3.75
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Z.AI APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window204,800 tokens262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output131,072 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoYesNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenProprietary
API model IDglm-5qwen3.5-397b-a17bqwen3.7-max
API providers27 (best)2326
ReleasedFeb 12, 2026Feb 15, 2026May 21, 2026
Knowledge cutoff———
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • GLM-5$16.40
  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
  • Qwen3.7 Max$40.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: GLM-5, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Qwen3.7 Max?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 65/100 against Qwen3.7 Max (58) and GLM-5 (55). It leads on price and inputs & features. Qwen3.7 Max wins on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, GLM-5, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Qwen3.7 Max?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is cheaper at $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). GLM-5 costs $1.00 input / $3.20 output per million tokens (official Z.AI API price); Qwen3.7 Max costs $2.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.35 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B versus $1.55 for GLM-5 (1.1× as much) and $3.75 for Qwen3.7 Max (2.8× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.7 Max scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Max 153.7 (#37 of 148), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 (#67 of 148) and GLM-5 145.8 (#74 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (151.9–156.0 vs 144.8–148.2), so the gap is a real one. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.7 Max 90.9%, GLM-5 87.8%, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 86.4%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.7 Max 95.6%, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 88.9%, GLM-5 80.0%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.7 Max leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.7 Max has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and 204,800 for GLM-5. Maximum output per response: GLM-5 up to 131,072, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536, Qwen3.7 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

GLM-5 accepts text; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts text, images, audio and video; Qwen3.7 Max accepts text. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

GLM-5 and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.7 Max is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.7 Max is the newest, released May 21, 2026. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B came out Feb 15, 2026; GLM-5 came out Feb 12, 2026.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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