GLM 5.3 Flash vs Kimi K3
GLM 5.3 Flash took 59 min 10 s and $0.037 at list price, Kimi K3 took 22 min 52 s and $1.92 at list price. GLM 5.3 Flash took 2.6× as long, and Kimi K3 cost 51× as much.
GLM 5.3 Flash
Z.ai · $0.148/M out · 1,329 HN pts
Kimi K3
Moonshot AI · $15.00/M out · 9,870 HN pts
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 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.
Patchbay is a small workshop in Rotterdam where old synthesizers come back to life. We are three people — a former recording engineer, a self-taught circuit obsessive, and a classically trained pianist who fell in love with broken machines — and between us we have spent decades coaxing sound out of equipment the rest of the world gave up on.
We started Patchbay because we kept meeting the same problem: beloved instruments sitting silent in attics and studio corners, written off as unfixable. A Juno with a dead voice chip. A Prophet that drifts out of tune. A Moog that hums when it shouldn't. To us, none of these are lost causes. They are instruments with history in them, and they deserve careful hands, original parts where possible, and honest work.
Every synth that leaves our bench is played, tested, and listened to — because that is what it was made for.
Specs and numbers
| GLM 5.3 Flash | Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | Moonshot AI |
| Made in | China | China |
| Released | 26 Aug 2026 | 16 Jul 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.016 | $0.192 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $0.148 | $15.00 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | open | open |
| Hacker News points | 1,329 | 9,870 |
| Time for the six prompts | 59 min 10 s | 22 min 52 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.037 | $1.92 |
GLM 5.3 Flash was cheaper: $1.88 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Kimi K3 was faster: 36 min 18 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Kimi K3's rebuild matched the screenshot at 68%; GLM 5.3 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Kimi K3's game passed 5 of 5 checks; GLM 5.3 Flash was not in it.





