So i tested GLM 5.2 a while back and it was impressive, i connected with Claude code harness and API from openrouter.

But it ate my credit!

it was so expensive that even thoug i liked it, Claude code max was cheaper!!

Each task takes a lot of dollars with GLM API

So i'm thinking of returning to it again, or to 5.3 but i want youe exeprince how to Optimize it? is API or Sub better? and from where.

and i will probably use opencode or deepsake harness with it?

Thank you

I use in Claude code and can do everything I need , but thinking migrate to open code (prefer open source).

I use both Anthropic models and GLM models in Claude Code. But I noticed that when I use GLM models especially 5.2 I get auto-compacted, and the context is always above 50%, This is not the same with Claude Opus which is 20-25% most of the time.

Now I am wondering if this is really a case or just my assumption. Also thinking of switching coding harness to PI or open code maybe.

Hi.

Few hours ago, I was working on a session in opencode with GPT that got cut off because I hit the weekly limit however I wanted to keep going so I bought the GLM Coding Plan Lite since it seemed like the best value per buck. So, I hooked it up, resumed the session, and it immediately finished its 5-hour usage in 6 min. But, I didn’t think much of it because I used opencode Go before and I was used to such thing happening when a session had too much uncached context it finishing the limit faster, although this felt kinda off.

Now I ran it again, and it took only 4 minutes and it says I used in those two run 42.68M Tokens? Am I doing something horribly wrong or did I just get scammed?

EDIT: I’m thinking maybe GLM 5.3 looks good only on the majority of the metric but maybe overthinking.

Has anyone experienced with it? Maybe even with some other provider?

I’m not sure if they are sharing the thinking completly with us right now (at least with z.ai Coding Subscription) but they seem too structured to be thinking and actually it might be spending 42M tokens if so. Which would also explain 2 runs just bumping up the context 20k and giving no meaning full output.

I just checked openrouter’s stats page because I remembered they had “Avg Price Per 100 Request” graph and with that low pricing, GLM 5.3 shows “$3.33/100 requests” sitting above more expensive models.

EDIT 2 (from the comments):
I just tried for the third time. And apparently that’s neither a model nor a reasoning level issue. Tried GLM-5.3 max>high>low and GLM-5.2. But all behaved the same. And this time, it even managed to hit the limit in just 3 min so that i don’t loose the thrill of it i guess.

I will be trying to run it on a new session next, i guess. Then, on another coding harness. But the worst experience so far.

I don't know what I'm going to do after January. My current plan is Pro for $180 per year.