Who is this guide for?

It is written for developers evaluating Chinese AI APIs, model capabilities, integration steps, and production trade-offs. Use the examples and linked documentation with your own workload.

How should current API details be verified?

Check the live AIWave pricing and model pages together with the official provider documentation on the date of deployment, because names, limits, and prices can change.

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. $0.20 starter credit.

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".

Related Guides

Chinese AI Models Pricing and Feature Comparison - DeepSeek vs GLM vs Kimi vs ERNIE

DeepSeek V4 API pricing · GLM-5 API pricing · Kimi API pricing · Qwen API pricing · ERNIE API pricing · OpenAI-compatible API docs · Chinese model comparison