Model comparison

Kimi K2.5 vs Qwen3 8B

Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI

48.1

Rank #57 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.5 scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3 8B in 0 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Kimi K2.5 leads 53.6 to 36.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 92.2% for Kimi K2.5 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
  • Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $2.25 for Kimi K2.5.
  • Kimi K2.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Kimi K2.5 and Qwen3 8B specifications
Kimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
ProviderMoonshot AIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index48.133.7
Released2026-01-272025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K131K
Max output262K8K
Input $ / M tokens$0.45$0.18
Output $ / M tokens$2.25$0.70
Results tracked5111

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 48.8 (#53), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
SciCode49%22.6%
SWE-bench Verified73.8%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)70.8%—
LMArena WebDev1437—
SWE-bench Multilingual67.3%—
WeirdML45.6%—
LMArena Coding1474—
ALE-Bench821.65—

Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 34.2 (#48), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
Terminal-Bench43.2%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—42.6%
OSWorld63.3%—
Vending-Bench 21,198—

Reasoning Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#80), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
CritPt3.1%0%
Chess Puzzles12%5%
Epoch Capabilities Index148.03136.17
ARC-AGI-211.8%—
SimpleBench46.8%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark78.5%—
NYT Connections (extended)69.9%—
ARC-AGI-165.3%—
EnigmaEval3.4%—
Thematic Generalization69.4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1453—
DTBench—59.7%
LMCA—8.8%

Math Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 51.8 (#53), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Knowledge Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#56), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond87.6%56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%4.8%
Humanity's Last Exam24.4%—
SimpleQA Verified34.3%—
LMArena Expert1466—

Multimodal Not comparable

Kimi K2.5: 41.1 (#39), Qwen3 8B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
LMArena Vision1269—
LMArena Document1430—

Multilingual Not comparable

Kimi K2.5: 53.9 (#53), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1433—
LMArena Chinese1495—
LMArena French1454—
LMArena German1441—
LMArena Japanese1421—
LMArena Korean1410—
LMArena Russian1435—
LMArena Spanish1450—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Kimi K2.5: 75.3 (#64), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following1431—

Long Context Kimi K2.5 leads

Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench86.1%62.1%
CL-bench19.3%—
CL-bench Life13.2%—
LMArena Longer Query1445—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Kimi K2.5: 65.1 (#53), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.5Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text1445—
LMArena Creative Writing1423—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1579—
LMArena Multi-Turn1444—

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2.5 better than Qwen3 8B?

Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.5 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.5 lists at $0.45 and $2.25.

Is Kimi K2.5 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.8 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Kimi K2.5 does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.5 and Qwen3 8B share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.

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