# Moonshot AI vs Z.ai > Two Chinese open-weight labs pitched at coding. Kimi K3 is the larger, stronger model; GLM-5.3 is far cheaper, MIT-licensed and sold on a flat coding plan. Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/moonshot-ai-vs-z-ai · By The Subconscious Team · Updated September 30, 2026 ## How they compare Moonshot and Z.ai both release open weights and both court coding agents, but they sit at different points on the price and capability curve. Kimi K3 is a 2.8 trillion parameter mixture-of-experts model with native vision and a 1M window, and Vals AI scored it 93.4% on SWE-bench Verified with a neutral harness, fourth overall. It costs $3 in and $15 out. Z.ai's GLM-5.3 costs $1.40 in and $4.40 out, with cached input at $0.26 against K3's $0.30, and GLM-5.3-Flash drops to $0.075 in. For raw capability K3 leads. For cost per task, GLM has the edge. Licensing and packaging push them further apart. GLM weights are MIT-licensed with no limits, while K3's custom license adds a commercial agreement above $20M in hosting revenue and a branding clause at large scale. Z.ai sells the GLM Coding Plan from $18 a month and an Anthropic-compatible endpoint that runs Claude Code on GLM. Moonshot offers Kimi Code in the terminal, plus OpenRouter and Cloudflare Workers AI. K3's drawbacks are speed, around 33 tokens per second with always-on thinking, and a 64+ accelerator self-hosting footprint. Z.ai's are servers mostly in China and quota that burns faster during Beijing peak hours. ## What each one does ### Moonshot AI Moonshot AI is the Beijing lab behind the Kimi models. Its flagship Kimi K3 launched July 16, 2026 as a 2.8 trillion parameter mixture-of-experts model that activates 16 of 896 experts per token, with native vision and a 1M token context. It is the first open model in the 3T class, and full weights landed on Hugging Face on July 27. The hosted API costs $3 in and $15 out per million tokens, with cached input at $0.30, and it runs through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, Kimi Code in the terminal, OpenRouter and Cloudflare Workers AI. ### Z.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. ## Which is best, and when ### Choose Moonshot AI for - Hard repo-scale coding where K3's benchmark lead matters - Visual agent work with native vision and 1M context - Teams that want the most capable open weights ### Choose Z.ai for - Budget coding inside Claude Code on a flat plan - Self-hosting under a plain MIT license - High-volume calls on cheap or free Flash models ## At a glance | Attribute | Moonshot AI | Z.ai | |---|---|---| | Model access | Open weights, custom license | Open weights (MIT) | | Flagship models | Kimi K3, Kimi K2.6 | GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3-Flash | | Speed | ~33 tok/s on Kimi K3 | ~80 tok/s on GLM-5.3 | | Price | $3 in, $15 out (Kimi K3) | $1.40 in, $4.40 out (GLM-5.3); free Flash tier | | Customization | Open weights to fine-tune | Open weights, no license limits | | Deployment | API, Kimi Code, OpenRouter | API, GLM Coding Plan | | Long context | 1M | 1M (GLM-5.3) | ## FAQ ### What is the difference between Moonshot AI and Z.ai? Two Chinese open-weight labs pitched at coding. Kimi K3 is the larger, stronger model; GLM-5.3 is far cheaper, MIT-licensed and sold on a flat coding plan. ### When should I choose Moonshot AI over Z.ai? Hard repo-scale coding where K3's benchmark lead matters; Visual agent work with native vision and 1M context; Teams that want the most capable open weights. ### When should I choose Z.ai over Moonshot AI? Budget coding inside Claude Code on a flat plan; Self-hosting under a plain MIT license; High-volume calls on cheap or free Flash models. ### Is Moonshot AI or Z.ai cheaper? Moonshot AI: $3 in, $15 out (Kimi K3). 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, Moonshot AI or Z.ai? Moonshot AI: 1M. Z.ai: 1M (GLM-5.3). ## Running long-horizon agents? If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious: [Subconscious vs Moonshot AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-moonshot-ai.md), [Subconscious vs Z.ai](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-z-ai.md). Full profiles: [Moonshot AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/moonshot-ai.md), [Z.ai](https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/z-ai.md).