Claude Fable 5.1 vs GLM 5.3 Flash
Claude Fable 5.1 took 16 min 4 s and $3.97 at list price, GLM 5.3 Flash took 59 min 10 s and $0.037 at list price. GLM 5.3 Flash took 3.7× as long, and Claude Fable 5.1 cost 106× as much.
Claude Fable 5.1
Anthropic · $50.00/M out · 1,630 HN pts
GLM 5.3 Flash
Z.ai · $0.148/M out · 1,329 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 began the way most repair shops do: with a broken synth, a stubborn owner, and a soldering iron that refused to stay idle. We're three people—Joris, Marit, and Tomas—working out of a small workshop on the back streets of Rotterdam-Noord, surrounded by oscilloscopes, spare parts, and instruments that sometimes arrive in worse condition than their owners admit.
Between us, we've spent decades repairing and restoring vintage synthesizers: Rolands, Moogs, Korgs, Yamahas, and machines whose manuals were never written in the first place. We don't sell anything. We fix things. That focus keeps us honest and keeps the work slow, careful, and done properly.
We believe old instruments deserve to keep making music, not gather dust in attics or fetch prices only collectors can pay. Whether it's a cracked keybed, a dying power supply, or a voice that's gone quiet, we'd like to help bring it back.
Specs and numbers
| Claude Fable 5.1 | GLM 5.3 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Z.ai |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 1 Sep 2026 | 26 Aug 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $10.00 | $0.016 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $50.00 | $0.148 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 1,630 | 1,329 |
| Time for the six prompts | 16 min 4 s | 59 min 10 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $3.97 | $0.037 |
GLM 5.3 Flash was cheaper: $3.94 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Claude Fable 5.1 was faster: 43 min 5 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, Claude Fable 5.1's Breakout game stopped painting; GLM 5.3 Flash's plays.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's rebuild matched the screenshot at 78%; GLM 5.3 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Fable 5.1's game passed 5 of 5 checks; GLM 5.3 Flash was not in it.





