Step 5 Preview vs GLM 5.3 Prime
Step 5 Preview took 10 min 44 s and $0.33 at list price, GLM 5.3 Prime took 55 min 49 s and $3.43 at list price. GLM 5.3 Prime took 5.2× as long and cost 10× as much.
Step 5 Preview
StepFun · $2.70/M out · 155 HN pts
GLM 5.3 Prime
Z.ai · $8.80/M out
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 a three-person workshop based in Rotterdam, dedicated to keeping vintage synthesizers alive and playable. We are technicians, musicians, and obsessive tinkerers who believe that classic analog instruments deserve better than silence. From temperamental Jupiter-8s to worn-out ARP Odysseys, we restore, repair, and maintain the machines that shaped the sound of modern music. Every repair starts with listening—both to the instrument and to the person who plays it. Whether you are chasing a rare fault, need a full calibration, or simply want your old synth to feel new again, our bench is open. We understand that no two synthesizers arrive with the same story, and we treat each circuit, slider, and key with the care its history deserves. At Patchbay, we are here to make sure the sounds of tomorrow are built on those that came before.
Some of the machines we work on were built before any of us were born. Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam, and what we do is simple to describe: we keep vintage synthesizers playing. A Minimoog that sat in an attic for thirty years. A Juno-60 with keys that no longer speak. A modular system that hums where it should roar. Whatever comes through our door gets opened up, traced through, and brought back.
That means rebuilding power supplies, cleaning a thousand key contacts, chasing a fault across three boards until it turns out to be a single cracked solder joint. It means calibrating oscillators that have drifted for decades, and listening — really listening — until a filter sounds the way it did the day it left the factory.
We do this because these instruments still sound like nothing else, and because somewhere a player is waiting to hear one come back to life.
Specs and numbers
| Step 5 Preview | GLM 5.3 Prime | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | StepFun | Z.ai |
| Made in | China | China |
| Released | 8 Oct 2026 | 23 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $1.00 | $2.80 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $2.70 | $8.80 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | open | closed |
| Hacker News points | 155 | — |
| Time for the six prompts | 10 min 44 s | 55 min 49 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.33 | $3.43 |
Step 5 Preview was cheaper: $3.10 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Step 5 Preview was faster: 45 min 6 s less in total, and faster on each of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play. GLM 5.3 Prime's landing page was cut off at the output limit (131,072 tokens).





