My friend Trey Hunner showed me the GLM set of models before Thanksgiving. While traveling to see family, I somehow messed up my Claude Code setup because of a wrapper I have with mise-en-place. I couldn’t use it for a while, and that made me realize I really need a backup for Claude Code.

Why GLM?

Z.AI’s GLM model is better than Gemini but not quite as good as Claude Code. It’s really fast (about twice as fast as Claude Code), seems like 90+ percent as good, and it’s really cheap. You can get an annual subscription for around $26-28 for the first year, and I’ve read online that it’s very hard to hit the limit even on the lowest tier subscription.

This is a great option for folks who can’t quite justify the $100/mo Claude plan but occasionally hit limits on the $20/mo Claude plan. I actually subscribe to the $100/mo plan, but I ended up getting the GLM Pro Plan because I like the amount of usage it gives me. The plan I’m on has five times as much token usage as the base tier.

Running Both Side by Side

There’s a wrapper tool that lets you use Z.AI’s models as Claude Code’s backend, so you can run both Claude and Z.AI’s GLM in two different windows. Having a reasonable backup that I can switch between or run in parallel is nice.

I never find speed to be an issue with Claude Code, but I’m definitely a fan of having options.

API Access

Claude doesn’t include API key access without paying extra. GLM solves this problem by giving you a raw API for a set price per month. Their API is OpenAI compatible, so I can work on agentic scripts using Open Coder or other applications without paying extra for Anthropic tokens.

Getting Started

To get started, run:

bunx claude-glm-installer

This will give you bash aliases that let you run various GLM models while still letting Claude default to the Anthropic backend:

ccg              # Claude Code with GLM-4.6 (latest)
ccg45            # Claude Code with GLM-4.5
ccf              # Claude Code with GLM-4.5-Air (faster)
cc               # Regular Claude Code

Trey also told me about claude-code-router, which lets you change models on the fly without restarting Claude Code. This might work well if you want to switch between models mid-session.

If you find yourself running out of Claude Code tokens a couple of times a week or even a couple of times a day, it might be worth checking out GLM as a backup or alternative.

If you want to try out Z.AI’s GLM models, please use my invite link (affiliate) or feel free to use Trey Hunner’s invite link (affiliate) instead.

Resources

Written by Jeff. Edited with Grammarly and Claude Code.