Claude Fable 5.1 vs GLM 5.3
Claude Fable 5.1 took 16 min 4 s and $3.97 at list price, GLM 5.3 took 22 min 22 s and $0.34 at list price. GLM 5.3 took 1.4× as long, and Claude Fable 5.1 cost 12× as much.
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic · $50.00/M out · 1,630 HN pts
GLM 5.3
Z.ai · $1.40/M out · 3,306 HN pts
Only Claude Fable 5.1 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is three people and one workshop in Rotterdam, and we spend our days bringing old synthesizers back to life. Most of what arrives at our bench is somewhere between thirty and fifty years old: a Juno with a dead voice chip, a Minimoog that drifts out of tune the moment the room warms up, a Polysix whose battery has quietly eaten its own circuit board. We know these instruments inside and out because we have had hundreds of them open on the table.
We started Patchbay because we kept meeting musicians who had been told their synth was not worth fixing. We disagree. These machines were built to be serviced, and with the right parts, enough patience, and a good set of schematics, almost any of them can be made to play again. When we hand an instrument back, we want it to sound the way it did the day it left the factory, or better.
Patchbay is a three-person workshop in Rotterdam where vintage synthesizers come back to life. Whatever lands on our bench — a battered Minimoog, a Juno with dead keys, an ARP silent since the eighties — gets the same treatment: careful diagnosis, honest advice, and repairs done right.
We started Patchbay because we believe a good synthesizer shouldn't die of old age. These machines are more than circuits and sliders — they're the sound of records you grew up with, and the reason some of us got into music in the first place. Every one we fix goes back out into the world ready to make more.
Between us we handle everything from recapping and calibration to keybed work and the hunt for parts nobody has made in decades. It's slow, meticulous work, and we like it that way. If something in your collection hums, crackles, or refuses to turn on, bring it in — we'll see what we can do.
Specs and numbers
| Claude Fable 5.1 | GLM 5.3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Z.ai |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 1 Sep 2026 | 18 Aug 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $10.00 | $0.07 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $50.00 | $1.40 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 1,630 | 3,306 |
| Time for the six prompts | 16 min 4 s | 22 min 22 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $3.97 | $0.34 |
GLM 5.3 was cheaper: $3.63 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Claude Fable 5.1 was faster: 6 min 18 s less in total, and faster on 4 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games stopped painting. GLM 5.3's Breakout game showed a blank first frame when the still was taken.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's rebuild matched the screenshot at 78%; GLM 5.3 was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's game passed 5 of 5 checks, GLM 5.3's 1 of 5.





