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GLM is Zhipu AI’s model family. Through RuAPI it comes in three lines — a flagship, a fast turbo, and a vision model that also reads images. People reach for GLM for the same reasons: strong agent and tool-use behaviour, solid code and bilingual text (English and Chinese), all at a low price. This page helps you pick a model for the task; the technical side of connecting is in the Quickstart.

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How the lines differ

LineStrong atSpeed / costReach for it when
GLM-5.2 (flagship)Strongest all-round: reasoning, code, agents, long contextFull powerThe hardest tasks, when you want the best quality
GLM-5-Turbo (turbo)Fast all-rounder: chat, code, general tasksFaster, cheaperEveryday work and high volume
GLM-5V-Turbo (vision)Understands images plus textFastReading screenshots, photos, diagrams, charts
Not sure? Start with GLM-5-Turbo — it covers most work fast and cheap. Move up to GLM-5.2 when the task needs the best quality, and reach for GLM-5V-Turbo only when you actually pass an image.

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What GLM can do

  • Vision — GLM-5V-Turbo takes images as input: screenshots, photos, diagrams, charts. The text-only lines don’t. See vision for how to pass an image.
  • Agents and tool use — GLM is strong at agentic workflows and returns structured tool calls reliably; see function calling for a full example.
  • Strong code and reasoning — the flagship writes and edits code confidently and handles step-by-step reasoning.
  • Bilingual — particularly strong on Chinese alongside English, useful for mixed-language content.
  • Low price — GLM’s key draw: capable models at a noticeably lower per-token cost.
For long answers, you can also stream the response token by token instead of waiting for the full reply.

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Picking by task

  • Best quality on a hard task → GLM-5.2.
  • Cheap and high volume → GLM-5-Turbo, for price and speed.
  • Reading images → GLM-5V-Turbo (vision).
  • Agent or tool pipeline → GLM-5.2 or GLM-5-Turbo (both have reliable tool use).
  • Code and refactoring → GLM-5.2 for hard work, GLM-5-Turbo for everyday.

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How to connect

GLM is served over the OpenAI-compatible protocol — no separate library needed, take any OpenAI SDK and change the base_url to https://www.ruapi.ai/v1. Step-by-step setup and a first request are in the Quickstart.
The model field takes an ID, e.g. GLM-5.2 for the flagship, GLM-5-Turbo for the fast all-rounder and GLM-5V-Turbo for vision. Exact names, versions and per-token prices are on the Pricing page at www.ruapi.ai.

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FAQ

GLM-5-Turbo is the everyday pick — fast, cheap, covers most work. Use GLM-5.2 when you need the best quality on a hard task, and GLM-5V-Turbo when you need to pass an image.
Yes — GLM-5V-Turbo is a vision model and takes images as input. The other GLM lines are text-only. For more on passing images, see vision.
Yes. GLM is strong at agentic workflows and returns structured tool calls reliably; a full example is in function calling.
GLM is one of the better-value families per token: capable models at a noticeably lower price. Exact prices are on the main site’s Pricing page.
Large — the window fits long documents and big chunks of code. The exact limit depends on the version and matches Zhipu’s official one.
You create a key in your dashboard after signing up; wiring it into code is in the Quickstart. Top up in USDT — see the Top-up page.

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Next

Connect and first request

base_url, key, Python and curl code.

Vision: reading images

Pass an image to GLM-5V-Turbo.

DeepSeek models

Same key — another strong value line.