GLM 5.3 as a coding agent in your terminal

Strengths

Z.ai's GLM 5.3 with a 1M token context. Capable agentic coding at a low input price.

OpenRouter's description:

GLM-5.3 is a large-scale reasoning model from Z.ai, built for complex software engineering and long-horizon agent tasks. It supports text input and output with a 1M-token context window, and improves...

Use GLM 5.3 as a coding agent in your terminal

Start Darce in your project with GLM 5.3:

npm install -g darce-cli
darce --model z-ai/glm-5.3

Already in a session? Type /model z-ai/glm-5.3, or open the picker with Ctrl+P. Darce then reads your code, edits files and runs commands with GLM 5.3; risky commands ask first, and /undo reverses any change, including what shell commands did. No account yet? npx darce-cli lets you try it free. Which plan includes which models is on the pricing page.

Make it your default or a gear

In ~/.darcerc, set it as the starting model or add it to the gears you move between with Shift+↑ / Shift+↓ (see configuration):

{
  "router": { "default": "z-ai/glm-5.3" },
  "gears": ["qwen/qwen3-coder", "z-ai/glm-5.3"]
}

Compare it on your own code

Benchmarks rarely match your repository. Race GLM 5.3 against two other models on a real task and keep the best diff:

/derby --models z-ai/glm-5.3,z-ai/glm-5.3-flash,z-ai/glm-5.1 fix the failing test

Read more about /derby and /swarm.

Related models

• GLM 5.3 Flash (Z.ai): 1.05M tokens, $0.15 / $0.50 per 1M tokens
• GLM 5.1 (Z.ai): 205k tokens, $0.97 / $3.04 per 1M tokens
• Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Anthropic): 1M tokens, $2.00 / $10.00 per 1M tokens
• Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic): 1M tokens, $3.00 / $15.00 per 1M tokens
• GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI): 1.05M tokens, $2.00 / $10.00 per 1M tokens
• GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI): 1.05M tokens, $2.00 / $10.00 per 1M tokens

All models · Getting started · Claude Code alternative

Model data from OpenRouter, refreshed daily. Prices are OpenRouter's list rates and show relative cost; your Darce allowance is used in proportion to them.