GLM 5.2 vs Llama 4 Scout

Z.ai · China  |  Meta · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick GLM 5.2 for long-horizon agentic coding or project-level software engineering. Pick Llama 4 Scout for largest advertised context (10m) or open weights, single-gpu friendly. On a tight budget at scale, Llama 4 Scout is the value pick.

GLM 5.2 (Z.ai, China) and Llama 4 Scout (Meta, US) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. GLM 5.2 is an open-weight reasoning model built for long-horizon coding and multi-step agent workflows — strong and cheap. Llama 4 Scout is the 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecGLM 5.2Llama 4 Scout
ProviderZ.ai (China) Meta (US)
ReleasedJune 16, 2026 April 2025
Context window1M (~1,500 pages) 10M (~15,000 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.98/$3.08 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?Yes — self-hostable Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, code text, image, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published 15%

Who wins what

Long-horizon agentic coding

GLM 5.2

A core design strength of GLM 5.2.

Project-level software engineering

GLM 5.2

A core design strength of GLM 5.2.

Tool use across long-running tasks

GLM 5.2

A core design strength of GLM 5.2.

Largest advertised context (10M)

Llama 4 Scout

A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.

Open weights, single-GPU friendly

Llama 4 Scout

A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.

Self-hosted, data-private deployment

Llama 4 Scout

A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.

Lowest cost at scale

Llama 4 Scout

At Open weight (self-host / free), it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

Llama 4 Scout

Its 10M window is about 10× larger, fitting roughly 15,000 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Llama 4 Scout

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts GLM 5.2, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Llama 4 Scout

Larger 10M window fits more in one prompt.

Anyone whose priority is long-horizon agentic coding

GLM 5.2

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is largest advertised context (10m)

Llama 4 Scout

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

Llama 4 Scout or GLM 5.2

Origin (China vs US) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.

GLM 5.2: where it fits

An open-weight reasoning model built for long-horizon coding and multi-step agent workflows — strong and cheap. Released June 16, 2026 by Z.ai, it is built for long-horizon agentic coding, project-level software engineering, tool use across long-running tasks, and tops the open-weight intelligence index.

Its trade-offs are real: text-only — no native multimodal input, and new release with a limited third-party track record. At $0.98 in / $3.08 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

Llama 4 Scout: where it fits

The 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. Released April 2025 by Meta, it is built for largest advertised context (10M), open weights, single-GPU friendly, self-hosted, data-private deployment, and retrieval over very long inputs.

Its trade-offs: effective recall degrades far below 10M, and ~15% on long-context multi-needle reasoning. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

The bottom line for this matchup

This is less "which is smarter" and more "which ecosystem fits." GLM 5.2 (China) and Llama 4 Scout (US) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. Llama 4 Scout is the cheaper option, which matters at volume. The pragmatic move is to run one real task through both and judge the outputs against your own constraints — including where your data is allowed to be processed.

Want both GLM 5.2 and Llama 4 Scout without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is GLM 5.2 or Llama 4 Scout better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, GLM 5.2 leans toward long-horizon agentic coding while Llama 4 Scout leans toward largest advertised context (10m), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, GLM 5.2 or Llama 4 Scout?

Llama 4 Scout is cheaper — $0.98/$3.08 per 1M tokens vs Open weight (self-host / free).

Which has the bigger context window?

Llama 4 Scout — 10M vs 1M, about 10× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both GLM 5.2 and Llama 4 Scout together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GLM 5.2, Llama 4 Scout and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, GLM 5.2 or Llama 4 Scout?

GLM 5.2 — released June 16, 2026, about 15 months after Llama 4 Scout.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.