Grok Code Fast 1 vs Muse Glimmer

xAI · US  |  Meta · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Grok Code Fast 1 for fast, cheap agentic coding at $0.20/$1.50 or low-latency code generation and terminal tasks. Pick Muse Glimmer for runs real agentic tasks locally on one consumer gpu - fits 24gb of vram in 4-bit or open weights (apache 2.0), free to self-host and offline-capable - data never leaves your machine. Choose Muse Glimmer if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Grok Code Fast 1 if you want a managed API.

Grok Code Fast 1 (xAI) and Muse Glimmer (Meta) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Grok Code Fast 1 is xAI's speed-tier coding model at $0.20/$1.50 with a 256K window — cheap, fast agentic code over frontier quality. Muse Glimmer is meta's open ~30B agentic model - runs tool-using AI agents locally on a single consumer GPU, offline and free, though it trails frontier cloud models. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecGrok Code Fast 1Muse Glimmer
ProviderxAI (US) Meta (US)
ReleasedAugust 28, 2025 August 10, 2026
Context window256K (~384 pages) 128K (~197 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.2/$1.5 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, code text, image, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Fast, cheap agentic coding at $0.20/$1.50

Grok Code Fast 1

XAI's speed-tier coding model at $0.20/$1.50 with a 256K window — cheap, fast agentic code over frontier quality — and it carries the larger 256K context.

Low-latency code generation and terminal tasks

Grok Code Fast 1

Grok Code Fast 1 lists low-latency code generation and terminal tasks among its strengths; Muse Glimmer does not.

High-volume coding pipelines where speed beats peak quality

Grok Code Fast 1

Grok Code Fast 1 lists high-volume coding pipelines where speed beats peak quality among its strengths; Muse Glimmer does not.

Runs real agentic tasks locally on one consumer GPU - fits 24GB of VRAM in 4-bit

Muse Glimmer

Open weights make this possible at all — Grok Code Fast 1 is API-only, so it cannot leave the vendor's servers.

Open weights (Apache 2.0), free to self-host and offline-capable - data never leaves your machine

Muse Glimmer

Meta's open ~30B agentic model - runs tool-using AI agents locally on a single consumer GPU, offline and free, though it trails frontier cloud models — and its weights are open while Grok Code Fast 1 is API-only.

Agentic by design: tool use, coding, file and screenshot reading, multi-step failure recovery

Muse Glimmer

Grok Code Fast 1 is comparatively weak here — a speed-tier coding model, not a frontier reasoner

Lowest cost at scale

Muse Glimmer

Its weights are open, so at volume you pay for your own hardware instead of Grok Code Fast 1's $0.2/$1.5 per 1M tokens.

Largest single-prompt input

Grok Code Fast 1

Its 256K window is about 2× larger than Muse Glimmer's 128K, fitting roughly 384 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Muse Glimmer

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Grok Code Fast 1, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Grok Code Fast 1

Larger 256K window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Muse Glimmer

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Grok Code Fast 1 is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is fast, cheap agentic coding at $0.20/$1.50

Grok Code Fast 1

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is runs real agentic tasks locally on one consumer gpu - fits 24gb of vram in 4-bit

Muse Glimmer

That is its strongest area.

Grok Code Fast 1: where it fits

XAI's speed-tier coding model at $0.20/$1.50 with a 256K window — cheap, fast agentic code over frontier quality. Released August 28, 2025 by xAI, it is built for fast, cheap agentic coding at $0.20/$1.50, low-latency code generation and terminal tasks, high-volume coding pipelines where speed beats peak quality, and a 256K window sized for real codebases.

Its trade-offs are real: text and code only — no image, audio or video input, xAI did not publish a SWE-Bench Verified score, a speed-tier coding model, not a frontier reasoner, and narrow focus — built for code, not general knowledge work. At $0.2 in / $1.5 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

Muse Glimmer: where it fits

Meta's open ~30B agentic model - runs tool-using AI agents locally on a single consumer GPU, offline and free, though it trails frontier cloud models. Released August 10, 2026 by Meta, it is built for runs real agentic tasks locally on one consumer GPU - fits 24GB of VRAM in 4-bit, open weights (Apache 2.0), free to self-host and offline-capable - data never leaves your machine, agentic by design: tool use, coding, file and screenshot reading, multi-step failure recovery, and 128K context, text and image input, trained on 100+ languages.

Its trade-offs: a distilled ~30B model - ceiling below its closed teacher (Muse Spark) and cloud flagships, no independent Artificial Analysis intelligence score published yet, published benchmarks (e.g. SWE-Bench Verified 76.0) are Meta's own, and 4-bit quantization to fit consumer GPUs trades away some accuracy. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. Muse Glimmer gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Grok Code Fast 1 gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both Grok Code Fast 1 and Muse Glimmer 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 Grok Code Fast 1 or Muse Glimmer 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, Grok Code Fast 1 leans toward fast, cheap agentic coding at $0.20/$1.50 while Muse Glimmer leans toward runs real agentic tasks locally on one consumer gpu - fits 24gb of vram in 4-bit, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Grok Code Fast 1 or Muse Glimmer?

Muse Glimmer is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Grok Code Fast 1 is API-metered at $0.2/$1.5 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok Code Fast 1 — 256K vs 128K, about 2× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both Grok Code Fast 1 and Muse Glimmer together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Grok Code Fast 1, Muse Glimmer 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, Grok Code Fast 1 or Muse Glimmer?

Muse Glimmer — released August 10, 2026, about 12 months after Grok Code Fast 1.

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.