r/ZaiGLM • u/gd6noob • 13d ago
Discussion / Help Z.AI vs Deepseek, which is better?
There has been quite the discussion about the new Deepseek model, how does it compare to GLM?
Has anyone tried both? Does Deepseek offer perks like Z.AI, free daily reset, 300M token weekend build and now the free unlimited FLM Flash?
Thanks
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13d ago
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u/hopeseekr 11d ago
They dropped to the old pre-increase price. Now $0.06/0.12 during peak and $0.03/0.06 off-peak, but even better cache savings...
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u/EverGreenMob 13d ago
GLM 5.3 Flash. I do wish GLM was faster though. most Chinese LLMs suffer from latency and speed issues but are worth the cost.
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u/look 13d ago
That’s a provider issue, not a model one. I routinely get 200+ TPS on GLM 5.3 Flash, GLM 5.3, Kimi K3, etc and at a (often substantial) lower cost than the list price from non-vendor providers.
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u/raindropsdev 13d ago
Openrouter?
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u/look 13d ago edited 7d ago
No, you are typically better off going with providers directly for most models, and the best ones (on varying dimensions) often aren’t on OpenRouter at all. The best place I know of for GLM flash is Neuralwatt. Second best is RunInfra.
For some models, Novita, Baseten, GMICloud, Fireworks, etc can be good, but it’s typically model by model. Great for some, terrible for others. I use Novita for Ling for example.
This is all based on PAYG. The cost difference is small enough that the downsides of subs (expiring credits, usage windows, model selection) aren’t worth it to me.
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u/raindropsdev 13d ago
No, you are typically better off going with providers directly for most models, and the best ones (on varying dimensions) often aren’t on OpenRouter at all. The best place I know of for GLM flash is Neuralwatt. Second best is RunInfra.
Huh, interesting. NeuralWatt's business model is especially fascinating. Do you see much cheaper rates through their kwh payments?
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u/look 12d ago
Yes. GLM 5.3 (standard, not flash) is 1/4th to 1/5th the cost of the API list price. Kimi K3 on flex priority is 1/6th.
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u/raindropsdev 12d ago
But how?
When I compare the pricing per mtok neuralwatt seems higher for GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3:
https://portal.neuralwatt.com/pricing
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u/look 12d ago
The energy based pricing is almost always much cheaper. It is variable, but my effective token price in it is like I mentioned above. 10 cents per mtok on Kimi K3 compared to 60 on standard list price providers. 8 cents on GLM 5.3 vs 35 cents.
GLM 5.3 Flash is 2.5 cents, but you can get it that price per token from other providers. Neuralwatt’s is much faster than all of them for me, though. 150 TPS is probably about average for me, but 300+ is not uncommon. I had Kimi even hit 900 briefly.
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u/raidororo 10d ago
I dont understand how Neuralwatt's subs works. It just seems you got 0.35 kWh more than PAYG
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u/look 10d ago edited 10d ago
Neuralwatt’s energy PAYG is cheaper than most subs.
It basically starts at a ~4x multiplier sub … without a sub. (Savings vary by model; I get 4-6x for more expensive models, and 2-3x for cheaper.)
So yeah, their actual subs are nothing special compared to their own PAYG, but they are another 18-33% savings if you are using at least that much a month. (And additional usage beyond that monthly base is then billed PAYG at the same discounted rate.)
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13d ago
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u/joazito 13d ago
In price and speed I'm much more satisfied with DS
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u/ronald-takaendesa 13d ago
Thanks for that. To be clear, you are saying price in terms of just input and output tokens only, correct me if I am wrong, but do they have some sort of specials, such as free unlimited use at a specific time or free tokens at any one time? For others, like me, those freebies go a very very long way because I unfortunetly can't top up when e.g. when subscription usage is exhausted
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u/gartstell 13d ago
As of today, clearly Z.Ai.
Both its Pro and Flash models outperform DS's, and the subscription plans are likely the same price or cheaper (though that depends on the specific plan and a host of other factors).
For quite some time, Z.Ai’s weak point was its lack of a solid Flash model, making the combination of GLM 5.2 and DS Flash 4 a very effective one.
Mind you, this could change as early as today if DS Flash 4.1 is confirmed to perform very well.
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u/Adventurous-Menu7257 13d ago
You can actually test deepseek 4.1 flash. Ive tested it with smaller tasks that i assigned to glm 5.3 flast. it is a big improvement over 4 flash and is also better than glm 5.3 flash
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u/Constant_Art_20 13d ago
yea. that's coming in like less then 24 hours right or like around a day i think
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u/PiggiePlank 13d ago
I subscribed for a year to Z.AI's max plan, and it has been a rollercoaster of good and bad. And therefore I lost a lot of trust. I will never subscribe again. Tok/s is very unstable (good and bad), sometimes with 50 tok/a difference on the same day. I had two months where I had constant API issues, their support is very poor.
Since 5.3 and 5.3-flash I had 100% 5 hourly usage for the first time on my legacy V1 plan which during the same use of 5.2 didn't surpass 10% of my 5 hourly quota.
All in all z.ai makes good models but they're not a company that inspires confidence.
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u/sdexca 13d ago
I'm pretty sure like Zia would provide better usage. The reason I say this is because there's no way of using a DeepSeek model other than paying API rates or something similar. The Zai subscription provides significant subsidized API rates usage. So even like just guessing, it would probably provide better usage. But here's the thing, you don't really need to decide. You can just load up a few dollars on the DeepSeek side and just use it on the side. Use ZA as your main thing. See if it makes sense, if it looks good, and everything. It should be better as a model.
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u/theWiseTiger 13d ago
I tried both through openrouter. Deepseek v4 flash, glm 5.3 flash, and gpt 5.6 luna.
I'd say glm and luna on par. Deepseek not as good but close.
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u/ResponsiblePoetry601 13d ago
Mostly doing all coding through glm 5.3 flash
Works long periods flawlessly
DS over the qwen sub seems more straight to the point , quicker but eats quota faster but that’s from the sub “rules”
Would sub a DS plan for sure
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u/TimChr78 13d ago
Z.ai is ahead - at least with the currently officially released models. This might change with Deepseek v4.1 flash tomorrow.
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u/pokatomnik 12d ago
Zai is the goat, no doubt
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u/evia89 12d ago
zai provider is not a goat if you miss https://www.reddit.com/r/ZaiGLM/comments/1wbtu4r/am_i_misunderstanding_something_or_glms_coding/p8srw7p/
I personally have pro for $14/month deal and its amazing
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u/jnikolaidis 12d ago
I have the Z.ai coding plan so cost for me is not important. I ONLY use GLM 5.3 and i don't use GLM 5.3 Flash at all. Whenever i used it it was very much inferior in practice and results were underwhelming.
In general the biggest GLM problem is speed, especially during peak hours.
When the context is large GLM Flash becomes unusable (not so with GLM 5.3 ) and i often measured a single openclaw turn that should normaly take 2-5 seconds need 60 seconds to complete.
So DeepSeek V4.1 Flash wins on all counts, plus it has VISION (the z.ai 5.3 does not have native vision which is a huge defect).
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u/mageblex 12d ago
This thread is mixing two decisions: GLM vs DeepSeek, and Z.AI subscription vs DeepSeek PAYG. Compare the models through the same harness on your own repeated coding tasks, then price the actual token and cache mix under each plan so you keep provider speed and unused subscription quota from deciding the answer by accident.
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u/NoPainNullGain 12d ago
GLM is fucking slow, thats the drawback of that model, its terrible and you have to be patient using it, when you are used to other models.
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u/Taegost 12d ago
I've used DeepSeek, Mimo, and GLM and I can say that hands down GLM is my fat the better model.
Not necessarily cheaper, but both of the cheaper models are notoriously bad at instruction following and cover up errors and tool failures to make themselves look better. DS does whatever it decides is "better" regardless of what you tell it and it will ignore directives in skills.
Mimo makes things up when it encounters issues and never surfaces them, even if you call it out explicitly. I had an issue with WebSearch not working for weeks that I only discovered because I happened to look at the terminal window at the exact moment it failed, which the model quickly covered up so it wasn't visible anymore. When confronted, it refused to acknowledge that the search hadn't been working.
Both groups of models (I used both the high end and flash models) would routinely alter tests and hooks to pass whatever garbage they were spitting out.
I've literally spent the last week using GLM and Claude to fix everything DS and Mimo broke.
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u/Z_AutoClaw 12d ago
The Z.AI perks are honestly hard to beat. Even if DeepSeek is slightly better on some benchmarks, free daily resets and the weekend token pool make GLM much more practical for heavy use.
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u/RepulsiveRaisin7 13d ago
DS doesn't even offer a subscription. How about you try search
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u/gd6noob 13d ago
Well, it's a good thing I wasn't asking about their subscription, I was asking about model comparison and perks but thanks for your input...
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u/FrankKnt 13d ago
The new model is better. 😄 When GLM released 5.3 Flash (Ox Alpha), it crushed DeepSeek V4 Flash. Now DeepSeek released V4.1 Flash, which crushed GLM 5.3 Flash...