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Head-to-head comparison

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs GLM 5 Turbo

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct (Qwen) and GLM 5 Turbo (Z.ai) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 22 September 2026

As of 22 September 2026, GLM 5 Turbo holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#92 vs #93); Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct is 14.3× cheaper per output token ($0.28/1M vs $4.00/1M); Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct offers the longer context window (262K vs 203K tokens); and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct ships open weights.

Which should you choose?

Choose Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct if…

  • API cost matters — $0.28/1M output tokens against $4.00/1M, about 14.3× cheaper.
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.07/1M against $1.20/1M.
  • you need the longer context window — 262K tokens against 203K.
  • you want to self-host: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct ships open weights while GLM 5 Turbo is api only.
  • you want provider choice — 4 listed API providers against 1.

Choose GLM 5 Turbo if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #92 against #93 (52.6 vs 52.4 points).
  • AA τ²-Bench Telecom is your yardstick — 98.5% against 34.5%.
  • AA Humanity's Last Exam is your yardstick — 27.8% against 3.8%.
  • you want the more recently listed model — GLM 5 Turbo was listed 15 March 2026, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 31 July 2025.

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs GLM 5 Turbo: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct and GLM 5 Turbo
FieldQwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructQwenGLM 5 TurboZ.ai
ModelCap Index position#93#92
Index score52.452.6
EvidenceEstimatedMeasured
Input price / 1M tokens$0.07$1.20
Output price / 1M tokens$0.28$4.00
Context window262K tokens203K tokens
Max output tokens236K131K
API providers listed41
Weight accessOpen weightsAPI only
Input modalitiesTextText
First listed31 July 202515 March 2026
PublisherQwenZ.ai

Evidence: publisher-corpus-prior over 203 held-out anchors (7%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 4 rows (94%); no cross-lab optimism probe available; shrunk 0.1 up toward the measured corpus · publisher-corpus-prior over 203 held-out anchors (64%); 1 specialist-board observation at 1.2% support (36%); shrunk 23.8 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs GLM 5 Turbo

Public benchmark boards where Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct or GLM 5 Turbo has a published result
BoardQwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructGLM 5 TurboLeads
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis34.5%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct":reasoning=false98.5%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="GLM-5-Turbo":reasoning=trueGLM 5 Turbo
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis3.8%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct":reasoning=false27.8%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="GLM-5-Turbo":reasoning=trueGLM 5 Turbo
WildClawBench OpenClawWildClawBench—33.9Only one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs GLM 5 Turbo: common questions

Is Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct better than GLM 5 Turbo?

GLM 5 Turbo ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 22 September 2026: #92 against #93. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct cheaper than GLM 5 Turbo?

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct is cheaper on output tokens: $0.28/1M against $4.00/1M. Input tokens are $0.07/1M for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct and $1.20/1M for GLM 5 Turbo. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $0.28 for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct versus $4.40 for GLM 5 Turbo. Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs 93.6% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct or GLM 5 Turbo?

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct has the larger context window: 262K tokens against 203K.

Which is better for coding, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct or GLM 5 Turbo?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct and GLM 5 Turbo open-weight models?

Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct: Open weights. GLM 5 Turbo: API only. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct and GLM 5 Turbo?

ModelCap currently lists 4 API providers for Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct and 1 for GLM 5 Turbo, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct vs GLM 5 Turbo comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 22 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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