Z.ai GLM Coding Subscription
The most recommended of 5 coding subscriptions
People recommend it as a very cheap way to run GLM models for coding and chat, with generous usage for the money. The most common caveat is worry about its China base and data terms.
People recommend it as a very cheap way to run GLM models for coding and chat, with generous usage for the money. The most common caveat is worry about its China base and data terms.
122 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 68
- criticize it
- 54
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 year
Median of the 8 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 68 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Very cheap for the usage
“I use glm-5.3-flash every day for a ludicrous 8.5USD/month and it's as good as DS 4.1 flash, if not better.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?” “I am so thankful for the subscription at z.ai, that Christmas deal was such a steal”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “OpenClaw is everywhere all at once, and a disaster waiting to happen” “With z.AI GLM Coding Subscription for 1344 USD per year, that buys you 74 years.”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “Jamesob's guide to running SOTA LLMs locally” - Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Improving 15 LLMs at Coding in One Afternoon. Only the Harness Changed”
- Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “Everyone should slow down AI development except for me”
- Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “AI's Affordability Crisis”
- Comment from 13 Jun 2026 in “US Government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5”
- Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Web development is fun again”
Works with coding tools
“Another advantage of z.ai is that you can also use the API, not just CLI. All in the same subscription. Pretty useful.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “GLM-4.7: Advancing the Coding Capability” “you can use pi with z.ai or any of the other cheap Claude-distilled providers for a couple bucks per month”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Clawdbot Renames to Moltbot” “I use the coding subscription in both Pi and OpenCode without issue.”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “ZCode: Claude Code from the Makers of GLM” - Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live”
- Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “I cut Claude API costs from $70/month to pennies”
Good model, near Sonnet level
“I enjoyed the model itself a lot and while their ZCode harness is also pretty nice, it gave me less tokens for similar amounts of money”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” “it feels about on par with something between sonnet 4.0 and sonnet 4.5”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “IQuest-Coder: A new open-source code model beats Claude Sonnet 4.5 and GPT 5.1 [pdf]” “z.ai has very good "thinking" but frequently not so good answers”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News - Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “DeepSeek-v3.2: Pushing the frontier of open large language models [pdf]”
Consistent performance and no limits
“I've actually gotten more consistent performance from Z.ai.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “Qwen3.6-Max-Preview: Smarter, Sharper, Still Evolving” “I never run out of token allotment on z.ai or codex plans”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Qwen3.6-Plus: Towards Real World Agents” “I looked at it when I subscribed almost a year ago and I was fine with it”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “GLM-5.3 is now open-weight”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
China base and data concerns
“I am ambivalent about z.ai. China -based company is problematic, but they should get my money since they do good for the world.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Just say no to OpenAI and Anthropic” “China have a history of stealing IPs/trade secrets and Chinese court favored its own local companies.”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “ZCode: Claude Code from the Makers of GLM” “numerous scandals of AI companies offering CC/cursor alternatives, then indexing data they never should have; specifically Z.ai”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “If you don't run your own LLM proxy, how do you know whats going on?” - Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Z.ai uploading local code repos to overseas cloud without consent”
- Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Pause OpenAI Now”
- Comment from 27 Aug 2026 in “GLM-5.3-Flash”
Unreliable or slow at times
“the z.ai plan is unbearably slow most of the time to the point where it's effectively unusable”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Zhipu's 120% Surge Highlights China's New AI Market Favorites” “If you're bothered by random failures, you probably won't be very happy with a z.ai sub.”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-1017” “z.ai API which isn't mature enough and has neither assistant prefills nor actual structured outputs”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” Fewer tokens than rivals
“I enjoyed the model itself a lot and while their ZCode harness is also pretty nice, it gave me less tokens for similar amounts of money”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” “The token limits still feel a bit more generous proportionally to the price compared to what I got when trying out the 65 USD tier of GLM Coding Subscription”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “Moonshot AI suspends new subscriptions due to Kimi K3 demand” Strict and vague terms of use
“Can ban you if you, in the "sole and absolute opinion" of Z.ai, have violated these broad terms”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “GLM-5.3-Flash” “Broad and perpetual license over inputs and outputs, and even your name and profile picture.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “GLM-5.3-Flash”
Other coding subscriptions people recommend
The four most recommended other coding subscriptions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z.ai GLM Coding SubscriptionThis page | 68 | 54 | 56% | 11 | 1 yr8 owners | — |
| Cerebras Code | 28 | 12 | 70% | 10 | 3 mo4 owners | Approved |
| MiniMax Coding Plan | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
| Alibaba Coding Plan | 6 | 7 | 46% | 5 | — | — |
| Kimi coding plan | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 149 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“numerous scandals of AI companies offering CC/cursor alternatives, then indexing data they never should have; specifically Z.ai”
“If you're bothered by random failures, you probably won't be very happy with a z.ai sub.”
“I am ambivalent about z.ai. China -based company is problematic, but they should get my money since they do good for the world.”
“I use glm-5.3-flash every day for a ludicrous 8.5USD/month and it's as good as DS 4.1 flash, if not better.”
“users said they found the data was encrypted with a backend private key held only by Z.ai”
“I pay $3/month for a Z.AI subscription and get billions of Opencode tokens”
“I bought early this year out of curiosity the z.AI pro plan for $30 / month”
“those prices are at least somewhat subsidized by you selling your plaintext session data”
“I looked at it when I subscribed almost a year ago and I was fine with it”
“it does grant them an irrevocable license to do, effectively, anything with the data”
“Broad and perpetual license over inputs and outputs, and even your name and profile picture.”
“Can ban you if you, in the "sole and absolute opinion" of Z.ai, have violated these broad terms”
“There are solid, cheap options like xAI, z.AI, MiniMax, Kimi, DeepSeek, and Alibaba.”
“The token limits still feel a bit more generous proportionally to the price compared to what I got when trying out the 65 USD tier of GLM Coding Subscription”
“I now make it a point of subscribing (directly) with providers that are transparent like MiniMax, DeepSeek, Xiaomi, & Z.ai.”
“z.ai API which isn't mature enough and has neither assistant prefills nor actual structured outputs”
“I enjoyed the model itself a lot and while their ZCode harness is also pretty nice, it gave me less tokens for similar amounts of money”
“I will cheer for China, for Kimi, and for z.ai until we have something in the same category.”
“I rarely hit that - they say they're giving 1.5x usage if you use it through Zcode”
“With z.AI GLM Coding Subscription for 1344 USD per year, that buys you 74 years.”
“China have a history of stealing IPs/trade secrets and Chinese court favored its own local companies.”
“I use the coding subscription in both Pi and OpenCode without issue.”
“Z.ai and Tencent are still much cheaper than Anthropic or OpenAI models”
“I had the Lite plan, I NEVER maxed out the quota because I considered these things.”
“The z.ai was stupid cheap during the great anthropic opencode rugpull.”
“I've actually gotten more consistent performance from Z.ai.”
“I never run out of token allotment on z.ai or codex plans”
“I've been paying for the ultra cheap Z.ai plan as my fallback for a while now”
“the z.ai plan is unbearably slow most of the time to the point where it's effectively unusable”
“Simply type a description, and our advanced AI generates high-quality, unique images in seconds.”
“I am so thankful for the subscription at z.ai, that Christmas deal was such a steal”
“you can use pi with z.ai or any of the other cheap Claude-distilled providers for a couple bucks per month”
“Consider using z.ai as model provider to further lower your costs.”
“It's a bit slower and dumber than actual Claude, so I just went for the real thing in the end.”
“GLM's coding subscription is like $6/month if you buy a full year.”
“it feels about on par with something between sonnet 4.0 and sonnet 4.5”
“Another advantage of z.ai is that you can also use the API, not just CLI. All in the same subscription. Pretty useful.”
“run the same open models for far cheaper and faster than you could ever build out at home”
“z.ai is 50% faster than Anthropic; which matches my experience”
“z.ai has very good "thinking" but frequently not so good answers”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.