The best alternatives to Z.ai (GLM)
Z.ai (GLM) might not be the right fit: the price, a missing feature or a payment model you don't like. These are the closest alternatives in our catalog, ordered by rating, with the full review of each one.
Why look for a Z.ai (GLM) alternative
A month after the previous sweep the entry price is still eighteen dollars a month, and the only dated news is that Hugging Face security teams again turned to GLM-5.2's open weights when commercial models refused the task
What its own users repeat in the August 8, 2026 sweep:
- It is no longer the obvious pick on price, the DeepSeek V4 Flash launch contests that ground in technical forums and comparison tables (strong theme)
- The free chat answers by default with a model other than the GLM-5.2 flagship, which is what the benchmarks rest on (strong theme)
- Downloading the weights is not the same as being able to run them, hundreds of billions of parameters demand hardware beyond home reach (present theme)
- What you pay is not refunded even if you do not use the plan, stated literally in its documentation (present theme)
- Web only, with no official iOS or Android apps outside China, and the interface is in English and Chinese only (present theme)
Best alternatives to Z.ai (GLM)
Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysing and thinking through documents.
The AI assistant that covers the most ground.
Moonshot's assistant with a million-token context window.
What the internet says about each alternative
Claude 4/5 · Free + from $17
This week the Pro plan is still $17 a month billed annually ($20 monthly) and now bundles Claude Cowork, confirmed on today's official pricing page. The official status page shows seven elevated error notices between August 3 and 5, fewer than the eighteen from the previous week but not fully stabilized, including an outage on the 4th that also blocked logins.
Where it wins: For long texts and analysis requiring nuance it remains the reference model for people who already use it daily. Where it slips: After the eighteen incidents in the week of July 25 to August 1, the pace of outages drops but does not disappear: the official status page logs seven elevated error notices between August 3 and 5, including one on the 4th that blocked some users from logging in.
ChatGPT 3.9/5 · Free + from $20
GPT-5.6 arrived this week: Luna is now the default model for Free and Go accounts with unlimited text chats, while Plus and Pro get GPT-5.6 Sol with a reasoning slider running from instant to high. OpenAI says factual errors drop 68% for Sol and 62% for Luna versus the previous model, a company figure with no independent check. The service logged three short incidents on the official status page between August 4 and 5, all resolved the same day. The Atlas browser stops working on August 9 and folds into ChatGPT itself.
Where it wins: It covers text, code, images, voice, web search and memory across conversations in one place, and that breadth is still its best argument Where it slips: The Plus caps run out with no consumption meter in the interface, and a single long task can burn the whole period's allowance
Kimi 3.7/5 · Free + from $19
The network still reads Kimi K3 as strong on long research and open weights, but new account sign-ups remain frozen since 20 July with no reopening date, and the entry price and conversation privacy complaints are unchanged.
Where it wins: Frontier-level quality on long research and documents, still the most praised feature in app store ratings Where it slips: Three weeks after the 19 July cutoff, Moonshot's own notice still says new plans are not available for purchase, with no opening date
Comparison table
| Tool | Price | Free trial | Platforms | Rating | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z.ai (GLM) | Free + from $18 | No | Web | VisitZ.ai (GLM) (opens in a new tab) | |
| Claude | Free + from $17 | No | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | VisitClaude (opens in a new tab) | |
| ChatGPT | Free + from $20 | No | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | VisitChatGPT (opens in a new tab) | |
| Kimi | Free + from $19 | No | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | VisitKimi (opens in a new tab) |
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