GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal vs GLM 5.3 Prime
GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal took 45 min 14 s and $0.42 at list price, GLM 5.3 Prime took 55 min 49 s and $3.43 at list price. GLM 5.3 Prime took 1.2× as long and cost 8.2× as much.
GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal
Z.ai · $1.25/M out
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 studio in Rotterdam devoted to the repair and restoration of vintage synthesizers. We work on the machines that shaped the sound of the last fifty years — Roland, Moog, Yamaha, Korg, EMS, and the rest — from the rare and legendary to the well-loved and well-worn.
We started the studio because these instruments matter. They were built to be repaired, with discrete components, schematics, and construction that reward patience and care. Somewhere along the way, that way of making things fell out of fashion. We think it's worth keeping alive.
Every synthesizer that comes through our door is treated the same way: carefully diagnosed, honestly assessed, and repaired with respect for its original character. No unnecessary modifications, no shortcuts that compromise the instrument. Whether it's a failed voice chip, a dead key, or years of dust and neglect, our job is to put the machine back in the hands of the people who play it.
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
| GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal | GLM 5.3 Prime | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Z.ai | Z.ai |
| Made in | China | China |
| Released | 2 Nov 2026 | 23 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $0.37 | $2.80 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $1.25 | $8.80 |
| Context | 1,048,576 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens |
| Weights | closed | closed |
| Hacker News points | — | — |
| Time for the six prompts | 45 min 14 s | 55 min 49 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.42 | $3.43 |
GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal was cheaper: $3.01 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. GLM 5.3 FlashX Legal was faster: 10 min 36 s less in total, and faster on 5 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).





