Recently, the OpenRouter platform quietly launched a secret model codenamed "Pony Alpha," which has shocked the industry with its powerful performance and free attributes. This article will analyze the highlights and mysteries of this model based on the latest information.

 Amazing Model Performance, Free Access Sparks Discussion

This "Pony Alpha" model is described as the next-generation foundation model, excelling in coding, reasoning, role-playing, and agent workflows. It supports a context window of up to 200K and a maximum output token count of 131K, with a cost of $0 per million tokens, completely free. This has quickly attracted a large number of users, processing over 40 billion tokens on the first day and receiving 206,000 requests.

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Tests show that the model performs highly efficiently in practical applications. For example, reports indicate it can generate a complete API proxy station in just 7 minutes, including front-end pages, back-end logic, and database integration, with fully functional dynamic data interaction. Although still an MVP demo version, its completeness and practicality exceed expectations. In SVG benchmark tests, its quality is comparable to the Claude Opus 4.5 level, and even surpasses it in coding and agent capabilities.

 Unique Output Style, Suspected to be Similar to Claude Opus

From the generated content, the output style of "Pony Alpha" resembles that of Claude Opus, with logical rigor and rich details. However, during jailbreak tests, it revealed some specific traces, such as generation speed and certain sensitive topic censorship behaviors, leading people to speculate that it may not be a new model but a disguised version of an existing cutting-edge model.

 Mysterious Identity, Pointing to Zhipu AI's GLM-5

Regarding the true source of this model, various speculations have emerged. The most popular theory suggests it comes from Zhipu AI's GLM-5. Reasons include: the release time coincides with Zhipu's announcement that GLM-5 will be released around the Chinese Spring Festival; the output style matches the GLM series; and when making API calls, the model claims to be developed by Zhipu as a GLM model. Additionally, the term "Pony" is related to the Year of the Horse (Chinese zodiac), further reinforcing this speculation.

However, other views suggest it might originate from a refined version of Anthropic's Claude series or a variant of xAI's Grok, such as Grok4.20 or 4.2. OpenRouter platform previously launched similar secret models, such as Quasar Alpha (actually GPT-4.1) and Sherlock Alpha (actually Grok4.1Fast), both from major companies. This time, "Pony Alpha" is also seen as a test product from a major lab.

 Potential Risks and Usage Recommendations

Although free and powerful, all conversation data are recorded by the provider, so it is not recommended for testing sensitive information. The industry has called on OpenRouter to reveal the model's true identity soon to avoid unnecessary speculation.

AIbase reported that the emergence of "Pony Alpha" marks a new phase in the competition of AI models. The rise of free high-performance models will accelerate application deployment. Users can test it through the OpenRouter platform, but they should be mindful of data privacy. If confirmed as GLM-5 in the future, it will further enhance China's influence in the global AI landscape.