GLM 5.2 vs. Opus
Key takeaways
- GLM-5.2 just came out, and it's another step forward for what open models can do.
- So we ran it head-to-head against Claude Opus 4.8: same one-shot prompt, build a 3D platformer in raw Web GL from scratch.
- In our test Opus was faster and shipped a cleaner, more correct game, and it can check its own visual output, which the text-only GLM-5.2 can't.
GLM-5.2 just came out, and it's another step forward for what open models can do. The internet promptly freaked out, and it's hard to tell what's real and what's hype.
So we ran it head-to-head against Claude Opus 4.8: same one-shot prompt, build a 3D platformer in raw Web GL from scratch. Here's our take after running the test and digging through the benchmarks and the buzz.
We're not switching our main off Opus. In our test Opus was faster and shipped a cleaner, more correct game, and it can check its own visual output, which the text-only GLM-5.2 can't. But GLM-5.2 earns a permanent spot in the arsenal: it's a genuinely capable model at a fraction of the price, and because it's open weights, it'll always be available. A closed model can be retired or restricted with little warning (Fable was a recent reminder); weights you can download can't be taken away.