GLM 5.2 Performance and Benchmarking
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the gist
GLM 5.2 is a 744B parameter open-weights model that matches GPT-5.5 on specific benchmarks and leads the Design Arena web design leaderboard, though it lacks native image input support.
Model Architecture and Benchmarks
GLM 5.2 is a 744B total parameter model with 40B active parameters, licensed under the MIT license. It achieved a score of 51 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it in the same performance tier as Gemini 3.5 Flash and GPT-5.4. On the coding index, it matches Gemini 3.1 Pro and outperforms Sonic 4.6. Notably, it is the first open-weights model to top the Design Arena single-turn HTML web design leaderboard, demonstrating a strong capability for generating code using libraries like ChartJS, Three.js, and Tailwind CSS.
Practical Performance and Limitations
The model is strictly text-based and cannot process image inputs directly. Users must rely on external models to generate descriptive prompts from screenshots to recreate UI designs. In testing, GLM 5.2 successfully generated functional full-stack applications using Next.js and Prisma, though it occasionally defaults to less scalable patterns compared to manual steering. While it is highly capable for web development tasks, it is relatively token-intensive, averaging 43,000 tokens per task, and can be slower than frontier models in complex rendering scenarios.
Cost and Efficiency
GLM 5.2 is priced at approximately $1.40 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens. Benchmarking indicates a cost of roughly $0.50 per task, positioning it as a highly cost-effective option relative to its intelligence level. It currently outperforms most open-weights peers like DeepSeek V4 and Kimi K2.7 Code in speed, though it remains slower than proprietary frontier models.