Model Comparison

GLM-4.5-Air vs GPT-4.1Which is better in 2026?

GLM-4.5-Air significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: GLM-4.5-Air vs GPT-4.1 — which is better?

GLM-4.5-Air (by Zhipu AI) and GPT-4.1 (by OpenAI) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

GLM-4.5-Air outperforms in 6 benchmarks (AIME 2024, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, SWE-Bench Verified, TAU-bench Airline, TAU-bench Retail), while GPT-4.1 is better at 0 benchmarks. GLM-4.5-Air significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose GLM-4.5-Air if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 6 of 6 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2025
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose GPT-4.1 if…

  • you want predictable pricing at $2.00/M input and $8.00/M output

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

6 benchmarks

GLM-4.5-Air outperforms in 6 benchmarks (AIME 2024, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, SWE-Bench Verified, TAU-bench Airline, TAU-bench Retail), while GPT-4.1 is better at 0 benchmarks.

GLM-4.5-Air significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Jul 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only GPT-4.1 specifies input context (1,047,576 tokens). Only GPT-4.1 specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Zhipu AI
GLM-4.5-Air
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
OpenAI
GPT-4.1
Input1,047,576 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Fri Jul 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

GPT-4.1 supports multimodal inputs, whereas GLM-4.5-Air does not.

GPT-4.1 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

GLM-4.5-Air

Text
Images
Audio
Video

GPT-4.1

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

GLM-4.5-Air is licensed under MIT, while GPT-4.1 uses a proprietary license.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

GLM-4.5-Air

MIT

Open weights

GPT-4.1

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

GLM-4.5-Air was released on 2025-07-28, while GPT-4.1 was released on 2025-04-14.

GLM-4.5-Air is 4 months newer than GPT-4.1.

GLM-4.5-Air

Jul 28, 2025

11 months ago

3mo newer
GPT-4.1

Apr 14, 2025

1.2 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

GPT-4.1 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while GLM-4.5-Air's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm GPT-4.1's training data extends to 2024-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without GLM-4.5-Air's cutoff date.

GLM-4.5-Air

—

GPT-4.1

Jun 2024

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Zhipu AI
Has open weights
Higher AIME 2024 score (89.4% vs 48.1%)
Higher GPQA score (75.0% vs 66.3%)
Higher Humanity's Last Exam score (10.6% vs 5.4%)
Higher SWE-Bench Verified score (57.6% vs 54.6%)
Higher TAU-bench Airline score (60.8% vs 49.4%)
Higher TAU-bench Retail score (77.9% vs 68.0%)
OpenAI
Larger context window (1,047,576 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Zhipu AIGLM-4.5-Air
OpenAIGPT-4.1
Compare in Playground

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against GLM-4.5-Air and GPT-4.1 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

GLM-4.5-Air
✓ Preferred
GPT-4.1
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Zhipu AI
GLM-4.5-Air
OpenAI
GPT-4.1

FAQ

Common questions about GLM-4.5-Air vs GPT-4.1.

Which is better, GLM-4.5-Air or GPT-4.1?

GLM-4.5-Air significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. GLM-4.5-Air is made by Zhipu AI and GPT-4.1 is made by OpenAI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does GLM-4.5-Air compare to GPT-4.1 in benchmarks?

GLM-4.5-Air scores MATH-500: 98.1%, AIME 2024: 89.4%, MMLU-Pro: 81.4%, TAU-bench Retail: 77.9%, BFCL-v3: 76.4%. GPT-4.1 scores MMLU: 90.2%, CharXiv-D: 87.9%, IFEval: 87.4%, MMMLU: 87.3%, MMMU: 74.8%.

What are the context window sizes for GLM-4.5-Air and GPT-4.1?

GLM-4.5-Air supports an unknown number of tokens and GPT-4.1 supports 1.0M tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between GLM-4.5-Air and GPT-4.1?

Key differences include multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (MIT vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes GLM-4.5-Air and GPT-4.1?

GLM-4.5-Air is developed by Zhipu AI and GPT-4.1 is developed by OpenAI.

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