GLM-5.3 vs Qwen3.6-27B: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
GLM-5.3 is developed by Zhipu AI, while Qwen3.6-27B comes from Alibaba. Qwen3.6-27B was released in April 2026, and GLM-5.3 followed 4 months later in August 2026. GLM-5.3 is the larger model at roughly 753 billion parameters, against 28 billion for Qwen3.6-27B.
The two models share 2 published benchmarks. GLM-5.3 leads on 2 of them. The widest gaps are on Humanity's Last Exam, where GLM-5.3 scores 62.5% against 24.0%; NL2Repo, where GLM-5.3 scores 58.0% against 36.2%. Averaged across everything we track, GLM-5.3 sits at 52.2% and Qwen3.6-27B at 77.5%.
Qwen3.6-27B is the cheaper API at $0.60 per million input tokens and $3.60 per million output tokens, roughly 2 times cheaper than GLM-5.3 at $1.40 and $4.40. GLM-5.3 takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 262K for Qwen3.6-27B. GLM-5.3 accepts text as input, while Qwen3.6-27B accepts text and images.
| Characteristic | GLM-5.3 | Qwen3.6-27B |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Zhipu AI | Alibaba |
| Release Date | August 14, 2026 | April 21, 2026 |
| Parameters | 753B | 28B |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Context (input) | 1.0M | 262K |
| Context (output) | 131K | 66K |
| Input Price / 1M | $1.40 | $0.60 |
| Output Price / 1M | $4.40 | $3.60 |
| Average Score | 52.2% | 77.5% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| Humanity's Last Exam | 62.5% | 24.0% |
| NL2Repo | 58.0% | 36.2% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
GLM-5.3 leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: GLM-5.3 — 0.5, Qwen3.6-27B — 0.8.
Qwen3.6-27B is 1.4x cheaper: input $0.60/1M vs $1.40/1M tokens.
GLM-5.3 supports a larger context: 1M vs 262K tokens.
GLM-5.3 is newer: released 8/14/2026 vs 4/21/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — GLM-5.3 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Which model is cheaper — GLM-5.3 or Qwen3.6-27B?
Which has a larger context window — GLM-5.3 or Qwen3.6-27B?
The GLM-5.3 and Qwen3.6-27B comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the GLM-5.3 or Qwen3.6-27B page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.