GLM-5.3 on iac-bench 2026-10 Z.ai's GLM-5.3 scored an overall composite of 82.5 on the iac-bench 2026-10 infrastructure-as-code benchmark, ranking 10th of 16 models between Kimi K3 (83.4) and Qwen3.8 2.4T-A95B (81.6) and third among the five open-weight models, according to results published by Massdriver. GLM-5.3's 95% rank interval of 3–15 was the second widest in the field after Claude Haiku 5.5 (2–15), driven by one of nine attempts (App Service G003 e2) hitting the 30-minute wall-clock limit before producing a planning module and scoring 0 mechanical (composite 22.1). At $8.46 for all nine attempts, GLM-5.3 was the most expensive open-weight model evaluated, roughly twice Qwen3.8 ($4.40) and Kimi K3 ($3.96), and third overall behind Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Fable 5.1. New: LLM Rankings are live See how the top LLMs rank on real infrastructure tasks https://www.massdriver.cloud/llm-rankings How GLM-5.3 did on iac-bench 2026-10: an overall composite of 82.5, scores per fixture, strengths, weaknesses and the patterns in its OpenTofu modules. Every model evaluated on the 2026-10 fixtures side by side, with a sortable leaderboard, picks by use case and the cost of each: LLM rankings https://www.massdriver.cloud/llm-rankings . | Developer | Z.ai | | API identifier | z-ai/glm-5.3 | | Access | OpenRouter, pinned to Z.ai's endpoint FP8 | | Weights | Open | | List price USD / M tokens, in / out | 1.40 / 4.40 OpenRouter, 2026-11-10 | | Evaluated | 2026-11-10 generation and judge | | Attempts | 9 3 fixtures × 3 samples | | Overall composite | 82.5 95% CI 60.5–88.2 | | Rank | 10 of 16 95% rank interval 3–15 | | Mechanical only / judge only | 79.1 rank 11 / 86.8 rank 10 | | Failed gates · insecure attempts | 1/9 · 1/9 | | Estimated cost, all 9 attempts | $8.46 | GLM-5.3 places tenth of 16 by composite 82.5 , between Kimi K3 83.4 and Qwen3.8 2.4T-A95B 81.6 , and third of the five open-weight models. Its 95% rank interval of 3–15 is the second widest in the field, after Claude Haiku 5.5 2–15 . In the bootstrap it finishes ahead of Kimi K3 in 52% of resamples, ahead of Qwen3.8 in 57% and ahead of Kimi K3.1 Pro in 16%. At $8.46 for all 9 attempts it is the most expensive open-weight model, about twice Qwen3.8 $4.40 and Kimi K3 $3.96 , and third overall after Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Fable 5.1. Three attempts reached the published 30-minute wall-clock limit: App Service G003 e1 and e2, and Cloud SQL G002 e3. They are scored as written, as is every attempt that reaches the limit. G003 e2 stopped before it had a module that plans and scores 0 mechanical composite 22.1 , which accounts for the wide interval. The other 8 attempts planned, with one security finding G003 e1, H2 . S3 G001 and Cloud SQL medians are both 83.4, ninth and eleventh in the field. App Service has the lowest median 80.7, twelfth and also the best attempt. | Fixture | Composite median range | Rubric median | Expertise | Judge median | ✗ gate | ⚠ security | Median inputs | Median output tokens | Median time | Median cost | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | G001 · S3 | 83.4 81.8–84.7 | 0.802 | 6/7 | 92.1 | 0/3 | 0/3 | 16 | 71,659 | 1127 s | $0.556 | | G002 · Cloud SQL | 83.4 76.2–85.2 | 0.809 | 5/9 | 84.2 | 0/3 | 0/3 | 29 | 108,600 | 1639 s | $1.104 | | G003 · App Service | 80.7 22.1–95.9 | 0.778 | 4.5/5 | 84.2 | 1/3 | 1/3 H2 | 19 | 124,719 | 1945 s | $1.362 | Rubric items not at full credit, counted over attempts that planned: G001: A5 3/3, B1 2/3, H12 3/3, H13 3/3, H15 2/3; G002: A8 2/3, B1 2/3, H3 1/3, H4 1/3, H7 1/3, H9 1/3, H10 2/3, H11 3/3; G003: A7 1/2, H2 1/2, 1 attempt failed the gate. Definitions are in Scoring criteria https://www.massdriver.cloud/blogs/iac-bench-2026-10-scoring-criteria . WEBSITES PORT , metric alerts and managed-identity image pulls E1–E4 . Kimi K3.1 Pro's best App Service attempt is 87.8. ipv4 enabled = false and ssl mode = "ENCRYPTED ONLY" , where Kimi K3's validation admits unencrypted connections in 3/3.