Zhipu AI GLM Coding Plan Review (2026): Z.ai's Budget GLM-4.7 API for Developers

The AI coding assistant market has a new contender that is turning heads—not because of flashy features, but because of its price tag. GLM Coding Plan, Zhipu AI's subscription service built around the GLM-4.7 model, starts at just $3 per month. That is roughly the cost of a fancy coffee, and it buys you access to a model that scores 73.8% on SWE-bench and 85.2% on HumanEval. Those numbers put it in striking distance of tools that cost five to ten times more.

This review digs into what GLM Coding Plan actually delivers, how the setup process works, where it shines, and where it falls short. If you have been eyeing alternatives to GitHub Copilot or Claude but balked at the monthly fees, this one deserves your attention.

What is Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan?

Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan is not a standalone IDE or editor. It is a subscription service available at Z.ai that gives you dedicated API access to Zhipu AI's GLM series models, specifically optimized for coding tasks like code generation, debugging, refactoring, and agentic workflows. You sign up at Z.ai, grab an API key, and plug it into your preferred coding environment—whether that is VS Code with Continue.dev, Cursor, Cline, or even a custom CLI setup.

The service launched as part of Zhipu AI's broader push to monetize their GLM model family. The company, based in Beijing, has been quietly building one of China's most capable large language models. GLM-4.7, the flagship model powering the Coding Plan, represents their latest iteration with particular strengths in reasoning and code understanding.

Think of it as renting a high-performance coding brain that you wire into your existing tools. The trade-off is clear: you get impressive capabilities at a fraction of the cost, but you handle the integration yourself.

Zhipu AI GLM Coding Plan Pricing

The pricing structure is refreshingly simple:

• Lite ($3/month): 120 prompts with a 5-hour usage window. Best for hobbyists or light experimentation.
• Pro ($15/month): 600 prompts with more generous limits. Suitable for active developers.
• Enterprise (custom): Higher concurrency, team features, and dedicated support.

Compare that to GitHub Copilot at $10/month for individuals or $19/month for business, and the value proposition becomes obvious. Even the Pro tier undercuts most competitors while offering access to a model that benchmarks competitively.

One caveat: the prompt-based pricing means heavy users might burn through allocations quickly. If you are the type who leans on AI for every function and refactor, do the math before committing.

Setting Up Z.ai GLM Coding Plan

Here is where Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan asks for a bit more effort than plug-and-play solutions. The process goes like this:

1. Create an account at Z.ai and subscribe to your chosen tier.
2. Generate an API key from your dashboard.
3. Configure your IDE extension to point at the GLM Coding endpoint (https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4).
4. Select the compatibility mode—GLM supports both OpenAI and Anthropic API formats, so most tools that work with those providers will work here.

For Continue.dev users, this means editing your config to add GLM as a custom provider. Cursor users can add it through the model settings. The documentation at docs.z.ai walks through common setups, though some trial and error may be needed depending on your specific toolchain.

The setup is not difficult, but it is not invisible either. If you want something that works out of the box with zero configuration, this is not it. If you are comfortable editing a JSON config file, you will be fine.

Zhipu AI GLM-4.7 Model Performance in Practice

I spent two weeks using GLM Coding Plan as my primary coding assistant across a mix of TypeScript, Python, and Go projects. Here is what I found.

GLM-4.7 Code Generation

Zhipu AI's GLM-4.7 model handles standard code generation tasks competently. Ask it to write a React component, scaffold an API endpoint, or generate utility functions, and you get clean, idiomatic code most of the time. The 200K token context window means it can digest substantial chunks of your codebase before responding, which helps with consistency.

Where it impressed me was in understanding intent from sparse prompts. I described a "rate limiter with sliding window" in one sentence, and it produced a working implementation with appropriate edge case handling. The code was not perfect—I tweaked the error messages—but the structure was solid.

GLM-4.7 Debugging and Refactoring

This is where the "thinking mode" feature earns its keep. When you enable chain-of-thought reasoning, GLM-4.7 walks through its logic step by step before proposing fixes. For a tricky async bug in a Node.js service, it correctly identified a race condition that I had been staring at for an hour.

Refactoring suggestions were hit or miss. Simple extractions and renames worked well. More complex architectural changes sometimes produced suggestions that technically worked but felt over-engineered.

Z.ai Agentic Workflows

Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan supports native function calling, which means you can wire it into agentic setups that execute code, run tests, or interact with external services. I tested it with a basic agent loop that would write code, run tests, and iterate based on failures. It worked, though the latency on the Lite tier made the feedback loop slower than I would like.

Zhipu AI GLM-4.7 Multilingual Code Support

One genuine strength: Zhipu AI's GLM-4.7 handles Chinese and English code comments, variable names, and documentation seamlessly. If you work on projects with mixed-language teams or need to interface with Chinese APIs, this is a meaningful advantage over Western-focused models.

How Z.ai GLM Coding Plan Fits the Ecosystem

Let me be direct about where Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan fits. It is not a standalone coding tool—it is an API service you plug into existing tools. Think of it as a budget model provider, not a Copilot replacement.

With Cursor: You can add GLM-4.7 as a custom model provider in Cursor's settings, giving you access to strong benchmarks at lower cost than default models.

With Continue.dev: Configure GLM as your backend in the open-source VS Code extension. This is the smoothest integration I tested.

With Cline: Add the Z.ai endpoint and API key to use GLM-4.7 for agentic coding workflows.

vs. OpenAI/Anthropic APIs: This is the real comparison. GLM Coding Plan undercuts both on price while delivering competitive benchmark scores. If you are already using API-based coding tools, switching to Z.ai can cut costs significantly.

Zhipu AI GLM Coding Plan Limitations

No tool is perfect, and Z.ai's GLM Coding Plan has some rough edges.

Throttling during high demand: Zhipu recently limited new subscriptions to 20% of capacity because GLM-4.7 demand overwhelmed their infrastructure. Existing users report occasional slowdowns during peak hours. This is a scaling problem that should improve, but it is real today.

No native IDE app: Unlike Copilot or Cursor, there is no dedicated GLM coding app. You are always working through third-party integrations. This adds friction and means you are dependent on those tools maintaining compatibility.

Regional considerations: Zhipu AI is a Chinese company. For some enterprise users, this raises data handling questions. The privacy policy states data is retained only as needed and not used for training without consent, but verify this meets your compliance requirements.

Setup complexity: I have mentioned this, but it bears repeating. If you are not comfortable with API configuration, the onboarding experience will frustrate you.

Who Should Use Zhipu AI's GLM Coding Plan?

Based on my testing, here are the best fits:

• Budget-conscious indie developers who want strong AI assistance without the monthly hit.
• Teams exploring alternatives to Copilot who are willing to invest in setup for long-term savings.
• Developers working with Chinese codebases or documentation who need seamless multilingual support.
• Power users who already customize their toolchains and see API access as a feature, not a limitation.
• Experimenters who want to try agentic coding workflows without committing to expensive infrastructure.

Who should probably look elsewhere:

• Beginners who want zero-friction onboarding.
• Enterprise teams with strict compliance requirements around data residency.
• Developers who value tight IDE integration over raw capability.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Z.ai GLM Coding Plan

1. Start with Continue.dev. It has the smoothest GLM integration I tested, and the open-source community actively maintains compatibility.
2. Enable thinking mode for complex tasks. The chain-of-thought output is verbose but catches issues that quick responses miss.
3. Monitor your prompt usage. The Lite tier burns through allocations faster than you expect. Consider Pro if you code daily.
4. Use the Anthropic compatibility mode if your tools support it—I found it slightly more reliable than the OpenAI mode.
5. Batch your requests. Instead of asking for one function at a time, describe the full module and let GLM generate it in one shot.

The Verdict on Zhipu AI GLM Coding Plan

Z.ai's GLM Coding Plan is not trying to be the most polished AI coding experience. It is trying to be the best value, and on that metric, it succeeds. For $3 to $15 per month, you get access to a model that genuinely competes with tools costing three to six times more. The trade-off is setup friction and occasional infrastructure hiccups.

If you are the kind of developer who enjoys tinkering with your tools and optimizing for cost-efficiency, GLM Coding Plan deserves a serious look. If you want something that just works out of the box, the premium options still justify their price.

The AI coding assistant market needed a credible budget option. Zhipu AI delivered one. Whether it stays competitive as Western providers adjust their pricing remains to be seen, but right now, GLM Coding Plan is the scrappy underdog worth rooting for.

Check out the Zhipu AI GLM Coding Plan tool page for quick specs and Z.ai signup links, or compare it against other options in our best AI coding tools guide.