Mercury 3 vs Muse Glimmer-30B
Mercury 3 and Muse Glimmer-30B are closely matched at 36.1 and 35.2 on the LLM Stats Score. Mercury 3 is 3.2x cheaper per token.
Inception · Meta · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 and Muse Glimmer-30B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 36.1 and 35.2.
The models split the 6 individual benchmarks reported for both models evenly.
On price, Mercury 3 is roughly 3.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Mercury 3 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Mercury 3
- cost matters — it's about 3.2x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026
Choose Muse Glimmer-30B
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
12 reported for Mercury 3 · 32 for Muse Glimmer-30B
Mercury 3 outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GDPval-AA, GPQA, Tau3 Banking), while Muse Glimmer-30B is better at 3 benchmarks (AA-LCR, DeepSearchQA, IFBench).
Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Mercury 3 ($0.10/1M tokens) is 3.0x cheaper than Muse Glimmer-30B ($0.30/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mercury 3 ($0.35/1M tokens) is 3.4x cheaper than Muse Glimmer-30B ($1.20/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Muse Glimmer-30B is more expensive than Mercury 3.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Mercury 3 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Muse Glimmer-30B's 131,072 tokens. Both models can generate responses up to 131,072 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Muse Glimmer-30B supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mercury 3 does not.
Muse Glimmer-30B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mercury 3
Muse Glimmer-30B
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Muse Glimmer-30B uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Muse Glimmer-30B was released on 2026-08-10.
Mercury 3 is 2 months newer than Muse Glimmer-30B.
Oct 19, 2026
1 days ago
2mo newerAug 10, 2026
2 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Muse Glimmer-30B has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-01-04, while Mercury 3's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Muse Glimmer-30B's training data extends to 2026-01-04, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mercury 3's cutoff date.
—
Jan 2026
Provider Availability
Mercury 3 is available from Inception. Muse Glimmer-30B is available from DeepInfra.
Mercury 3
Muse Glimmer-30B
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Muse Glimmer-30B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Muse Glimmer-30B.