Chinese LLMs 3 services

Chinese LLMs have improved quickly on price-performance. DeepSeek, Qwen, Zhipu GLM, Kimi and MiniMax are now usable for Chinese-language work and code generation, usually at an order of magnitude below an overseas model of the same tier.

Within this category, one distinction matters: direct-from-vendor versus reselling. A direct service connects to the model vendor's own open platform, which means a short path and prices close to the official ones. A reseller adds another layer in between — possibly cheaper, but with less predictable stability and a murkier data path.

If corporate data is involved, the compliance of the data path matters too. A request through a relay means the content passes through a third party, so for sensitive workloads confirm the service's data-handling terms — or go directly to the vendor's official platform, or to a gateway you host yourself.

Note also that Chinese models iterate on a different rhythm and their naming is not standardised — the same model may go by different names on different services. Compare by capability tier rather than by exact model name, or the naming differences will simply confuse the comparison.

• Most stable：Highest current uptime. Fewer samples means more distortion, so we state the source (public dataset / our own measurement) and you can check it on the detail page.
• Fastest：Ordered by the home-page response time of the most recent probe. A single measurement is noisy, so treat it as a range rather than an absolute.
• Broadest model coverage：This uses the model count our endpoint probe actually detected, not the support list the service advertises — the two are measured differently, and the advertised figure is usually the more optimistic one.

How big is the price advantage of Chinese models?

Within the same tier, typically an order of magnitude. That is the main reason to choose this category. But the tiers have to line up — comparing a Chinese flagship against an overseas lightweight tells you nothing. Our official price list carries reference prices per family, so find your tier by task type first, then compare across.

Is it safe to use Chinese models through a relay?

The request goes through the relay, so the content is visible to a third party. Where trade secrets or personal data are involved, a neutral rule of thumb applies: if the vendor's official platform or a self-hosted gateway can do the job, do not route it through a third-party relay; if you do use one, confirm its data-handling and retention terms first.

Are Chinese models good enough for coding tasks?

For everyday completion, refactoring and unit-test generation, usually yes — DeepSeek and the GLM line have the strongest reputation among developers. For complex architecture design and long debugging chains, flagship overseas models still lead. Many teams tier it: routine work on Chinese models, hard problems switched to a flagship.

The same model has different names on different services — how do I know it is the same one?

Go by the vendor's official name; relay aliases are usually invented locally. Request /v1/models to see the real ids and compare them against the vendor's documentation. Our detail pages show the model identifiers our probe found, which you can use for reference.