glm 5.3 flash is 7.5x cheaper, but 3.4x slower than gemini 3.7 flash

@Zai_org glm 5.3 flash – shipped aug 26, $0.07/$0.25 per 1m
@GoogleDeepMind gemini 3.7 flash – shipped aug 13, $0.38/$1.88 per 1m

we put the two models on one job: write one html file that draws an animated 3d scene in the browser. no images, no downloads, and it has to look the same on every load.

the setup: three scenes – a glass aquarium in a lit room, the solar system, a night city under a thunderstorm. identical brief word for word, reasoning effort high, 64k output cap.

the numbers below are not the whole run. they cover the three scenes we kept – the best one per task from each model, the ones in the video.

- total generation time for the three scenes
#1 gemini 3.7 flash – 10m 36s
#2 glm 5.3 flash – 36m 30s

- tokens spent on those three scenes
#1 glm 5.3 flash – 110k
#2 gemini 3.7 flash – 111k

- cost of those three scenes
#1 glm 5.3 flash – $0.027
#2 gemini 3.7 flash – $0.202

observations:

• glm's first 10 attempts: 7 blank pages. it kept inventing short random helpers and forgetting to define one of them. the fix was one line in the brief: use exactly one random helper, named rand(), and don't invent shorthands next to it. next 12 attempts: 11 alive, 0 crashes.

• glm spends 66% of its output on reasoning, gemini 57%. that is the whole speed gap.

• gemini's storm came back as a black rectangle in 4 of 6 runs. glm's best storm has a branching bolt, lit rain and wet asphalt – for $0.01.

conclusion: same three scenes, same token spend – glm 5.3 flash billed $0.027 and took 36m 30s, gemini 3.7 flash billed $0.202 and took 10m 36s. glm wins gemini on price and made the best storm of the whole run

watch the full test via link