Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
GLM-4.5-Air scores 59.1 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct's 56.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 5 scored categories. Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct leads on reach. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.
Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 2870 open weights comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents with two to four datacentre GPUs, or a provider account, who want a permissively licensed English and Chinese tool-calling model with wide runtime support.
Ahead on
- Capability, 50 against 43
- Risk, 65 against 55
- Agent interface, 85 against 60
- Documentation and upkeep, 38 against 31
Watch for
Z.ai's smallest build is FP8 at about 135 GB in use, with no 4-bit build of its own
Best for An agent with a 32 GB GPU or more that wants the strongest dense Qwen3-VL model for images, documents and video
Ahead on
- Reach, 85 against 65
Watch for
No safety evaluation, agent-use guidance or security contact
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | GLM-4.5-Air | Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%35 | 50 | 43 | GLM-4.5-Air +7 |
| Reach | 25%25 | 65 | 85 | Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct +20 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 65 | 55 | GLM-4.5-Air +10 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 60 | GLM-4.5-Air +25 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 38 | 31 | GLM-4.5-Air +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 59.1/100 | C 56.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | GLM-4.5-Air | Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Z.ai (Zhipu AI) | Alibaba (Qwen team) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2025-08-11 | 2025-11-01 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | ||
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (4) |
Verdicts
GLM-4.5-Air
An English and Chinese cousin for agent, coding and tool-calling work, with switchable thinking and wide runtime support. It needs about 135 GB for Z.ai's FP8 build, two to four H100s by Z.ai's figures, and Z.ai and Novita host it. The main risk is age, with files from August 2025 and no answers from Z.ai since.
Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
The largest dense Qwen3-VL cousin, for harder work on screenshots, documents, charts and video, needing about 25 GB from Alibaba's Q4_K_M GGUF with its vision file, in every major runtime under plain Apache 2.0. It has no thinking mode or published safety work, and only one provider was found serving it, so plan to run it yourself.
Before you call either
GLM-4.5-Air
- Z.ai's FP8 recipe is
python3 -m sglang.launch_server --model-path zai-org/GLM-4.5-Air-FP8 --tp-size 4 --tool-call-parser glm45 --reasoning-parser glm45, and 2 H100s are enough below the full 128K context - Use the glm45 tool and reasoning parsers for this model, the glm47 parser in Z.ai's current README is for GLM-4.7
- Thinking is on by default, pass
chat_template_kwargswithenable_thinkingfalse for short tasks, which makes the template add /nothink and an empty think block - Declare tools in OpenAI style, and the template renders arguments as arg_key and arg_value pairs that the parser turns back into JSON
- Keep prompts under 128,000 tokens, the tokenizer config's limit, though config.json allows 131,072
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented for the weights
Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Start it with
llama-server -hf Qwen/Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja -c 32768, orollama run qwen3-vl:32b-instruct - In Ollama the plain
qwen3-vl:32btag is the Thinking edition, so name32b-instruct - With the GGUF, load the mmproj vision file too, or images won't be read
- Parse tool calls as JSON inside
<tool_call>tags, or use SGLang's--tool-call-parser qwen - Use the card's sampling,
temperature=0.7, top_p=0.8, top_k=20, presence_penalty=1.5for vision andtemperature=1.0, top_p=1.0, top_k=40, presence_penalty=2.0for text - Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
- vLLM needs 0.11.0 or later and Transformers 4.57.0 or later
- If you pulled the FP8 build before 22 October 2025, pull it again, since the earlier files were the Thinking edition's
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, GLM-4.5-Air or Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct?
GLM-4.5-Air scores 59.1 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct's 56.4 (C), and leads in 4 of 5 scored categories. Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct leads on reach.
Other comparisons with GLM-4.5-Air or Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Agents-A1-4B vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Agents-A1-4B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Apertus v1.5 8B vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Apertus v1.5 8B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Apodex-1.1-mini vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Apodex-1.1-mini vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- BigBang-v1 vs GLM-4.5-Air
- BigBang-v1 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Cosmos-Reason2-2B vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Cosmos-Reason2-2B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Darwin-36B-Opus vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Darwin-36B-Opus vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- DeepSeek-V3.2 vs GLM-4.5-Air
- DeepSeek-V3.2 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs GLM-4.5-Air
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 vs GLM-4.5-Air
- DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- DiffusionGemma 26B A4B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Gemma 4 12B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Gemma 4 12B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Gemma 4 31B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Gemma 4 31B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Gemma 4 E2B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Gemma 4 E2B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Gemma 4 E4B IT vs GLM-4.5-Air
- Gemma 4 E4B IT vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs GLM-4.7-Flash
- GLM-4.5-Air vs GLM-5.3
- GLM-4.5-Air vs GLM-5.3-Flash
- GLM-4.5-Air vs gpt-oss-120b
- GLM-4.5-Air vs gpt-oss-20b
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Granite 4.2 3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Hy3
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Inkling
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Inkling-Small
- GLM-4.5-Air vs InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Kimi K3
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Kolibri-1
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Laguna M.1
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Laguna S 2.1
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Laguna XS 2.1
- GLM-4.5-Air vs LFM2.5-2.6B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Ling-3.0-tiny
- GLM-4.5-Air vs MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs MiniCPM-o 4.5
- GLM-4.5-Air vs MiniCPM5-2B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs MiniMax-M2.5
- GLM-4.5-Air vs MiniMax-M2.7
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Muse Glimmer 30B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3 Nano 4B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs occamy-1.0
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Olmo 3 7B Think
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Ornith-1.5-397B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Ornith-1.5-9B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-0.8B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-122B-A10B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-2B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-4B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.5-9B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.6-27B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.8-27B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-Coder-Next
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-VL-4B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2
- GLM-4.5-Air vs SmolLM3-3B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Spark-X2.6-4B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B
- GLM-4.5-Air vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- GLM-4.5-Air vs ThinkingCap (Qwen3.8 27B)
- GLM-4.7-Flash vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- GLM-5.3-Flash vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- GLM-5.3 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- gpt-oss-20b vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Granite 4.2 3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Hy3 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Inkling-Small vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Inkling vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Kimi K3 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Kolibri-1 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Laguna M.1 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Laguna S 2.1 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Laguna XS 2.1 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- LFM2.5-2.6B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Ling-3.0-tiny vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- MiMo-V2.6 Distill Qwen 9B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- MiniCPM-o 4.5 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- MiniCPM5-2B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- MiniMax-M2.5 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- MiniMax-M2.7 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Muse Glimmer 30B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B A3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Nano 4B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Nano Omni 30B A3B Reasoning vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- occamy-1.0 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Olmo 3 7B Think vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Ornith-1.5-397B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Ornith-1.5-9B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-0.8B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-122B-A10B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-2B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-4B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.5-9B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.6-27B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.8-27B vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-Coder-Next vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-Omni-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-4B-Instruct
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs SmolLM3-3B
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Spark-X2.6-4B
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
- Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct vs ThinkingCap (Qwen3.8 27B)
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/glm-4-5-air-vs-qwen3-vl-32b-instruct.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/glm-4-5-air.json·/api/v1/tools/qwen3-vl-32b-instruct.json - From a terminal
anchor compare glm-4-5-air qwen3-vl-32b-instruct(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "glm-4-5-air", "b": "qwen3-vl-32b-instruct"}at/mcp, no key