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Baseten vs Z.ai
Z.ai makes GLM and sells it cheaply, including an $18 coding plan. Baseten hosts GLM 5.2 among 13 open models, outside China and with compliance options.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Baseten vs Z.ai: key differences
Z.ai is the lab; Baseten is a host that serves its weights. From Z.ai directly, GLM-5.3 costs $1.40 in and $4.40 out, GLM-5.3-Flash costs $0.075 in and $0.25 out, and several older Flash models are free. The GLM Coding Plan starts at $18 a month on the Lite tier, and an Anthropic-compatible endpoint lets Claude Code run on GLM. That package is hard to beat on price for a single developer. Baseten serves GLM 5.2 over both OpenAI and Anthropic-shaped endpoints, so the same coding-agent setup works there with a base URL change, and its KV cache-aware routing is aimed at agentic coding traffic.
Location is the biggest practical gap. Z.ai's servers sit mostly in China, which adds 100 to 200ms from the US or Europe and raises data concerns. Baseten offers data residency, HIPAA and self-hosting, and it posted the lowest measured time to first token. Z.ai's Coding Plan quota also burns 2 to 3x faster on premium models during Beijing peak hours. Because GLM ships under MIT, a team can fine-tune it freely and serve the result on Baseten through Truss.
What Baseten and Z.ai do
Baseten
Baseten runs two products. Model APIs serve a curated set of 13 open models, including DeepSeek V4, GLM 5.2, Kimi K3 and gpt-oss 120B, over endpoints that speak both the OpenAI Chat Completions shape and the Anthropic Messages shape. That dual compatibility means an existing OpenAI or Claude SDK, or a coding agent, points at Baseten with a base URL change. Dedicated deployments take any model you package with the open-source Truss CLI and bill per GPU minute, with an H100 at about $6.50 an hour.
Example models: GLM 5.2, gpt-oss 120B
Full Baseten profileZ.ai
Z.AI is the international brand of Chinese lab Zhipu AI, maker of the GLM models. Its current flagship, GLM-5.3, shipped August 17, 2026 at $1.40 in and $4.40 out per million tokens, with cached input at $0.26. GLM-5.3-Flash costs $0.075 in and $0.25 out, and several older Flash models are priced at zero, a real free tier instead of trial credits. GLM-5, released in February 2026, is a 744B mixture-of-experts model under an MIT license, and at launch it ranked first among open-weight models on the Artificial Analysis index with a record-low hallucination score.
Example models: GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3-Flash
Full Z.ai profileShould you choose Baseten or Z.ai?
Baseten
Choose Baseten for
- GLM for companies that cannot route data to China
- Serving an MIT-licensed GLM fine-tune on dedicated GPUs
- Coding agents that need low first-token latency
Z.ai
Choose Z.ai for
- Individual developers on a flat $18 coding plan
- Free Flash-tier models for prototypes
- Newest GLM-5.3 releases straight from the lab
Baseten vs Z.ai at a glance
| Attribute | Baseten | Z.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, 13 curated | Open weights (MIT) |
| Flagship models | GLM 5.2, DeepSeek V4, Kimi K3, gpt-oss 120B | GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3-Flash |
| Speed | 0.49s TTFT, lowest measured | ~80 tok/s on GLM-5.3 |
| Price | H100 about $6.50/hr dedicated | $1.40 in, $4.40 out (GLM-5.3); free Flash tier |
| Customization | Deploy any model with Truss | Open weights, no license limits |
| Deployment | Model APIs, dedicated, self-host | API, GLM Coding Plan |
| Long context | Varies by model | 1M (GLM-5.3) |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Baseten and Z.ai?
Z.ai makes GLM and sells it cheaply, including an $18 coding plan. Baseten hosts GLM 5.2 among 13 open models, outside China and with compliance options.
When should I choose Baseten over Z.ai?
GLM for companies that cannot route data to China; Serving an MIT-licensed GLM fine-tune on dedicated GPUs; Coding agents that need low first-token latency.
When should I choose Z.ai over Baseten?
Individual developers on a flat $18 coding plan; Free Flash-tier models for prototypes; Newest GLM-5.3 releases straight from the lab.
Is Baseten or Z.ai cheaper?
Baseten: H100 about $6.50/hr dedicated. Z.ai: $1.40 in, $4.40 out (GLM-5.3); free Flash tier. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Baseten or Z.ai?
Baseten: Varies by model. Z.ai: 1M (GLM-5.3).
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