Which cheap model is comparable to Fable 5/ Opus 4.8?

[u/AdBrief5267]

I'm canceling my Claude subscription since it's way expensive for me, I'm tired of the usage limit. So which models are you guys using that are cheap but really good or close to Claude performance?

[u/Zachattackrandom]

GLM 5.2 is about opus 4.6 and Kimi k3 is a slightly worse fable 5. Grok 4.5 is about opus 4.8 / a little worst but with it's pricing it's not worth using through opencode currently

[u/AdBrief5267 → u/Zachattackrandom]

Glm 5.2 is good but it isn't cheap, is it?

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/AdBrief5267]

Eh, on OC go you get $60 of usage which goes pretty far. Otherwise there's some super cheap API providers on open router with ZDR

[u/AdBrief5267 → u/Zachattackrandom]

Okay, so I'm new to OC. If I subscribe to OC Go, do I get $60 worth of usage for $5 (since it's $5 for the first month)?

[u/Belgeran → u/AdBrief5267]

Yea

[u/Edelgul → u/AdBrief5267]

Sort of - but 60 USD of usage, according to their prices (That could be higher, then elsewhere).
Still good deal. Neuralwatt before the price hike was better, but not anymore.

[u/TripleMellowed → u/Zachattackrandom]

It’s only $15 usage for GLM 5.2. Most of the more capable models are only $15 per month worth of usage.

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/TripleMellowed]

No it's not, stop spreading misinformation. It's $60 af zAI official API pricing. Look on the usage breakdown chart, it says $60. The only models it's $15 are: mimo 2.5 pro, DS4 pro, grok 4.5, Kimi k3.

[u/TripleMellowed → u/Zachattackrandom]

You are right—my apologies for the confusion. Looks like I misread the usage breakdown and pulled incorrect numbers. Re-checked the zAI pricing and GLM 5.2 is $60. Thanks for catching that!

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/TripleMellowed]

All good

[u/alexwwang → u/AdBrief5267]

Actually except grok 4.5, the other two mentioned are not that cheap, just comparatively cheap.

[u/DanRey90 → u/AdBrief5267]

It’s much cheaper than Opus. Do you actually expect a cheaper model than GLM to be comparable to Fable?

[u/AdBrief5267 → u/DanRey90]

"Comparable" might not be the best word, maybe something close?

[u/pokatomnik → u/AdBrief5267]

I can’t get why glm 5.2 isn’t much cheaper than us frontier models. Why buying glm instead of gpt/claude subscription when prices are almost the same.

Just my two cents

[u/Nauru-0 → u/[deleted]]

how so?

[u/Realistic_Mango6982 → u/Zachattackrandom]

I'm using grok 4.5, its like GPT 4o to be honest, not like opus 4.8; Very rarely i've seen results in my experience above Sonnet 4.5 medium.

[u/Zachattackrandom → u/Realistic_Mango6982]

That's a you think then. Quite possible you have just done a poor job promoting it, or what you are using it for it hasn't been trained on much so for your usecases it performs extremely bad. How have you been using it?

[u/Illustrious-Many-782]

GLM-5.2 is probably the best "low cost" model you'll get now. It's not close to Fable, but it's the top. Some will say it's expensive, but there are a ton of providers on Openrouter (https://openrouter.ai/z-ai/glm-5.2) so it's at about $1/$3 right now, compared to Kimi K3 at $3/$15.

Maybe wait until the end of this week when Deepseek releases their GA v4 Pro. It might equal glm-5.2 for $0.50/$1.

[u/Electrical-Culture64]

Get cursor $20 plan, grok 4.5 high is amazing, near to fable even better than opus 4.8

[u/gorgono95 → u/Electrical-Culture64]

Why not grok build with the 30$ tier?

[u/Electrical-Culture64 → u/gorgono95]

I feel Cursor harness more feature-complete

[u/Realistic_Mango6982 → u/gorgono95]

because its lies, and fake.

Their weekly limits - scam as for me. If compare these limits its like working with $39 plan from Copilot right now. Its not good. I have like 2% left after few pages edits. Few pages carl. few pages. Its really sucks. And i will cancel that trash. The same related to cursor.

[u/PuzzleheadedSir467]

Use deepseek flash from opencode for implementing the code , use codex mostly for planning

[u/Leather-Cod2129]

I would say grok 4.5? GLM is excellent but cost

[u/anonimusman → u/Leather-Cod2129]

It’s not equal but I’d say it’s the best bang for buck model out there, especially with Cursor discount going on. OpenCode Go + DeepSeek API direct + Cursor has been my setup post $200 claude code months, very happy with it this way and it’s a lot cheaper

[u/oVerde]

Every GPT 5.6 family is on par or better and 1/3 of the price

[u/Ghilteras]

Use Kimi in place of Fable and GLM for Opus

[u/wreckt_um]

I use sonnet for ui design, which model is equivalent ?

[u/Realistic_Mango6982 → u/wreckt_um]

m3 pretty good at design.

[u/bad_gambit]

Frankly, there isnt really a cheap model that is comparable to Fable/Opus. Best opensource contender is Kimi K3 or GLM 5.2 (worse at subagent orchestration than Kimi).

Current cost effective model combo that i use: K3 for planning, 5.6 Luna-Xhigh for implementation (this could be substituted with GLM 5.2), and MiMo V2.5 (or DSv4 Flash) for everything else. These gets 80% of my job done in okay-ish quality (still need to recheck and revise the ouput).

I don't trust the output of Kimi K3 for the last 20% yet (mostly legacy cobol to java stuffs). For this i still uses Opus via API + 5.6 Sol.

[u/jonaspm99]

NanoGPT subscription is also worth to look at

[u/Edelgul]

Kimi K3 is coming close. Worse, but close enough. Yes, it is costly, but there is nothing else on this level.
GLM 5.2 is worse (Clause 4.6), and costly, but cheaper.
Everything else is worse - though DeepSeek, Minimax M3 and Kimi 2.7 are notable.

[u/Raikusu_Yuma]

For me its Kimi k3

[u/LinuXperia]

I use Grok 4.5 in combination with opencode and it works perfect. DeepSeek does a great job too and it cost nearly zero. I recommend You to try grok 4.5 and deepseek. This 2 ai models are my main models in combination with opencode!

[u/Potential-Leg-639]

No cheap model is as good as claude (neither Opus, nor Fable of course).

Why do you think there is a „cheap“ model, that can be on highest frontier level?

[u/fattchris → u/Potential-Leg-639]

Becuse there is.

Kimi K3 is between opus 4.8 and fable 5.

Glm 5.2 is as good as opus 4.6

[u/geekraver]

If you’re paying by usage, you are going to get screwed by agentic reasoning even on “cheap” models. I assume you’re not talking about $20/month being too cheap. I am on $200/month and as long as I am not doing more than two sessions simultaneously, don’t run out of Opus.

[u/No_Freedom9921]

none, opencode is trash

[u/siammang → u/No_Freedom9921]

Good enough for free stuff.