GLM 5 vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

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

Quick verdict

Pick GLM 5 for agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows or complex systems design and backend reasoning. Pick NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b) or 1m-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% ruler @ 1m). On a tight budget at scale, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is the value pick.

GLM 5 (Z.ai, China) and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (NVIDIA, 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 is z.ai's flagship open-weight (MIT) MoE foundation model, engineered for complex systems design and long-horizon agentic coding. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is nVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. They diverge most on price, context window and coding benchmarks — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecGLM 5NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super
ProviderZ.ai (China) NVIDIA (US)
ReleasedFebruary 11, 2026 March 11, 2026
Context window200K (~300 pages) 1M (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$1/$3.2 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?Yes — self-hostable Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, code text, code
SWE-Bench Verified77.8% 60.47%
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows

GLM 5

A core design strength of GLM 5.

Complex systems design and backend reasoning

GLM 5

A core design strength of GLM 5.

Iterative self-correction on autonomous tasks

GLM 5

A core design strength of GLM 5.

High-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Lowest cost at scale

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

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

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Its 1M window is about 5× larger, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts GLM 5, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.

Anyone whose priority is agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows

GLM 5

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super or GLM 5

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

GLM 5: where it fits

Z.ai's flagship open-weight (MIT) MoE foundation model, engineered for complex systems design and long-horizon agentic coding. Released February 11, 2026 by Z.ai, it is built for agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows, complex systems design and backend reasoning, iterative self-correction on autonomous tasks, and open weights under the permissive MIT license.

Its trade-offs are real: 200K context trails 1M-context rivals, and quickly superseded by GLM-5.1 and GLM-5.2. At $1 in / $3.2 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super: where it fits

NVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. Released March 11, 2026 by NVIDIA, it is built for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B), 1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M), strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025), and fully open weights, datasets, and recipes for self-hosting.

Its trade-offs: text-only; no image, audio, or video input, and requires roughly 8x H100-80GB GPUs to self-host at BF16. 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 (China) and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (US) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 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 and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 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 or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super better for coding?

On SWE-Bench Verified, GLM 5 scores 77.8% and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super scores 60.47% — GLM 5 has the measurable edge.

Which is cheaper, GLM 5 or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is cheaper — $1/$3.2 per 1M tokens vs Open weight (self-host / free).

Which has the bigger context window?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — 1M vs 200K, about 5× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both GLM 5 and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GLM 5, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 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 or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — released March 11, 2026, about 28 days after GLM 5.

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.