Chinese AI Models Comparison 2026

The definitive side-by-side comparison of China's top LLMs — DeepSeek GLM Kimi ERNIE — for developers choosing an AI API. Pricing, speed, context windows, and real-world benchmarks. All accessible through one OpenAI-compatible API.

🎯 All 4 models. One API key. $5 free.

No per-model registration. No Chinese phone number. Start comparing in 5 minutes.

Try All Models Free →

Pricing Comparison (per 1M tokens, USD)

Model	Input	Output	vs GPT-4	Best For
DeepSeek V4 Pro	$0.20	$0.40	150x cheaper	Coding, math, reasoning
DeepSeek Reasoner R1	$0.55	$2.19	27x cheaper	Complex chain-of-thought
GLM-5	$0.15	$0.30	200x cheaper	General purpose, cheap API
Kimi K2	$0.30	$0.60	100x cheaper	Long context (200K)
ERNIE 4.0	$0.12	$0.12	250x cheaper	Chinese-language tasks
GPT-4 comparison: $30/$60 per 1M tokens (in/out). Chinese models at AIWave include markup for API gateway service.

Technical Specs

Model	Context Window	Max Output	Avg Latency	Vision	Function Calling
DeepSeek V4 Pro	128K	8K	~0.8s	✅	✅
DeepSeek R1	128K	32K	~15s (thinking)	❌	❌
GLM-5	128K	4K	~1.3s	✅	✅
Kimi K2	200K	8K	~1.6s	❌	✅
ERNIE 4.0	8K	2K	~1.0s	✅	✅

Use Case Matrix

Use Case	Best Model	Budget Pick	Why
Code generation	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5	DeepSeek trained on massive code corpus
Math / logic	DeepSeek R1	Kimi K2	Chain-of-thought reasoning built-in
Long doc analysis	Kimi K2	DeepSeek V4	200K context handles entire books
Chatbots	GLM-5	ERNIE 4.0	GLM is responsive and cheap
Chinese content	ERNIE 4.0	GLM-5	Native Chinese training data
Image understanding	GLM-5	DeepSeek V4	Best Chinese-language vision model
Production API	DeepSeek V4 Pro	GLM-5	Fastest, most reliable

The AIWave Advantage

Method	Accounts Needed	Phone Verification	Monthly Minimum	API Format
Register each provider directly	4+ accounts	❌ Chinese phone ×4	Varies	4 different formats
AIWave API Gateway	1 account	✅ None	✅ $0	✅ One OpenAI format

💡 Strategy: Smart developers use model routing — send simple requests to cheap GLM-5, complex reasoning to DeepSeek R1, and long documents to Kimi K2. With AIWave, you swap models by changing one parameter: model: "deepseek-v4-pro" → model: "kimi-k2".