Kimi K3 vs GLM 5.3 FlashX

Practical read: Kimi K3 starts answering sooner. GLM 5.3 FlashX costs about a seventh as much. One API key runs both.

No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.

Side by side:

MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 compared with Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX
Attribute	Kimi K3 `moonshotai/kimi-k3`	GLM 5.3 FlashX `z-ai/glm-5.3-flashx`
Price, 1M in + out	$11.97 Chutes, cheapest route	$1.71 Novita AI, cheapest route
Best for	Speed	Low cost
Input / output, 1M	$1.95 / $10.02	$0.39 / $1.32
Cached input	$0.1688/1M to $0.910887/1M	$0.079125/1M
Context window	1.05M 1,048,576 tokens	1.05M 1,048,576 tokens
First token, p50	0.82 s via Telnyx	2.4 s via Tencent Cloud TokenHub
Throughput	255 tok/s via Wafer	Measuring
AI IQ	IQ 127 #22 on AI IQ	Unrated
Provider routes	26 with failover	3 with failover
Privacy	Confidential E2EE and zero retention route	Varies by provider
Recent route uptime range	66.67% to 100.00%	100.00%
Publisher	Kimi	Z.AI
Modes	chat	chat
More detail	Overview Pricing Providers	Overview Pricing Providers

Price adds one million input and one million output tokens on the cheapest route. Prices and speed change: see the monthly reports and run a small eval before you choose a default.

Test both with your agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent.

Compare Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 FlashX in this project through TrustedRouter.

1. Read https://trustedrouter.com/docs/llms.txt
2. Point the OpenAI-compatible client at
   https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1 and read the key from
   TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY.
3. Run our eval prompts on moonshotai/kimi-k3, then on z-ai/glm-5.3-flashx.
4. Show me cost, latency and quality side by side before changing the default.

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY"],
)
for model in ("moonshotai/kimi-k3", "z-ai/glm-5.3-flashx"):
    response = client.chat.completions.create(
        model=model,
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}],
    )
    print(model, response.choices[0].message.content)

for model in moonshotai/kimi-k3 z-ai/glm-5.3-flashx; do
  curl https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1/chat/completions \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"model\": \"$model\", \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"What is the capital of France?\"}]}"
done

Your agent will need an API key.

Questions

Which should I use, MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX?

MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 has more Credits provider routes and the lower measured p50 time to first token. Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX has the lower published input-plus-output rate. Their context windows are the same size.

Is MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX cheaper?

The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $11.97425/1M for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and $1.7091/1M for Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.

Is MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 or Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX faster?

Current measured p50 time to first token is 823 ms for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and 2377 ms for Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX. These are routed probe measurements, not vendor-advertised speeds, and update as new samples arrive.

Can I test MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 and Z.ai: GLM 5.3 FlashX with the same API?

Yes. Use the same OpenAI-compatible TrustedRouter base URL and API key, then change only the model id between moonshotai/kimi-k3 and z-ai/glm-5.3-flashx. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.

More comparisons

All comparisons

Try Kimi K3 and GLM 5.3 FlashX with one key.

TrustedRouter is useful when you know the model you want, but still need provider rollover, budget limits, usage records, and a prompt path you can verify.

No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.