Head to head

GLM 5.3 Flash vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher on 2 of the 2 benchmarks both models publish. The widest gap is on Humanity's Last Exam (with tools), where DeepSeek V4.1 Flash leads by 8.6 points. Both have open weights; GLM 5.3 Flash is far lighter to host, needing about 221 GB at 4-bit against 381 GB for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash.

GLM 5.3 FlashZhipu AI (Z.ai) · OpenLLM Buddy catalog—compositeDeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek · OpenLLM Buddy catalog79.8composite

Shared benchmarks

Raw published scores; the higher score on each row is highlighted. LMArena Elo is a human-preference vote and is not counted as a win.

  • Humanity's Last Exam (with tools)
    55.363.9

    with tools (page attributes to HF official evaluation section)Pass@1, with tools, max effort

  • Terminal-Bench
    84.390.6

    Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Z.ai vendor-reported)Terminal-Bench 2.1, Pass@1, max effort

  • LMArena Text Elo · not counted
    14771476

    LMArena text overall, 'GLM-5.3-Flash', ±5, as of 2026-10-27LMArena text overall, 'DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-20260910 (Max)', ±6, as of 2026-10-27

Should you pick GLM 5.3 Flash or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash?

Pick GLM 5.3 Flash if…

  • You want the lighter model to host: about 221 GB at 4-bit against 381 GB.
  • Cost matters: $0.500 per million output tokens against $1.20.
  • You want it running in minutes on a dedicated GPU through OpenLLM Buddy, in an uncensored build.

Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash if…

  • You care most about Humanity's Last Exam (with tools), Terminal-Bench, where it scores at least 2 points higher.
  • You need fast responses: about 217 tokens per second through APIs, against 75.
  • You want it running in minutes on a dedicated GPU through OpenLLM Buddy, in an uncensored build.

Hardware and cost to run

GLM 5.3 Flash

Even at 4-bit it needs about 221 GB (4× H100 (320 GB)), well beyond a home workstation, so most people run it on rented multi-GPU servers. Full BF16 precision needs about 736 GB (8× H200 (1,128 GB)).

On OpenLLM Buddy: GLM-5.3-Flash-Uncensored-FP8 runs on 4× H200 141GB as an FP8 build, with an OpenAI-compatible API and no per-token fees. Prices start at $280 USD for 11 hours.

Deploy GLM 5.3 Flash
Full GPU memory table for GLM 5.3 Flash

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Even at 4-bit it needs about 381 GB (4× H200 (564 GB)), well beyond a home workstation, so most people run it on rented multi-GPU servers. Full BF16 precision needs about 1.3 TB (Multiple nodes (over 1.1 TB)).

On OpenLLM Buddy: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-UNCENSORED-FP8 runs on 4× H200 141GB as an FP8 build, with an OpenAI-compatible API and no per-token fees. Prices start at $280 USD for 11 hours.

Deploy DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Full GPU memory table for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Category profile

Category index uses every test each model reports, not only the shared ones.

ReasoningCodingAgenticKnowledge
GLM 5.3 FlashDeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Reasoning—75.9
Coding93.072.1
Agentic79.091.3
Knowledge——

Specs side by side

GLM 5.3 FlashDeepSeek V4.1 Flash
LabZhipu AI (Z.ai)DeepSeek
WeightsOpenOpen
Released2026-08-262026-09-10
Parameters320B total, 18B active (MoE)552B total, 16B active (MoE)
Context1M1M
LicenseMITMIT
4-bit memory221 GB · 4× H100 (320 GB)381 GB · 4× H200 (564 GB)
API price$0.150 in / $0.500 out per 1M tokens$0.300 in / $1.20 out per 1M tokens
API speed75 tok/s217 tok/s

Related comparisons

Sources

ModelTestScoreSettingSource
GLM 5.3 FlashHumanity's Last Exam (with tools)55.3with tools (page attributes to HF official evaluation section)CometAPI GLM-5.3-Flash spec page (secondary)
DeepSeek V4.1 FlashHumanity's Last Exam (with tools)63.9Pass@1, with tools, max effortDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card (Hugging Face)
GLM 5.3 FlashTerminal-Bench84.3Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Z.ai vendor-reported)DataNorth news (quoting Z.ai official results)
DeepSeek V4.1 FlashTerminal-Bench90.6Terminal-Bench 2.1, Pass@1, max effortDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash model card (Hugging Face)
GLM 5.3 FlashLMArena Text Elo1477LMArena text overall, 'GLM-5.3-Flash', ±5, as of 2026-10-27Arena (LMArena) text leaderboard
DeepSeek V4.1 FlashLMArena Text Elo1476LMArena text overall, 'DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-20260910 (Max)', ±6, as of 2026-10-27Arena (LMArena) text leaderboard

Scores are published results from model cards, lab reports, and public leaderboards, each linked to its source. Settings such as thinking mode or test version differ between sources and are shown next to each score. OpenLLM Buddy catalog models are uncensored fine-tunes; their scores are those of the official base model. Data collected 2026-10-30. How the index works