Model comparison

Kimi K2.6 vs o3-mini

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 32 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2.6 Moonshot AI

47.5

Rank #52 Confirmed

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #205 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 32 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 8 categories and o3-mini in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Kimi K2.6 leads 56.8 to 27.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 57.2% for Kimi K2.6 and 18.6% for o3-mini.
  • Kimi K2.6 is cheaper at $0.95 / $4 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
  • Kimi K2.6 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 200K.
  • Kimi K2.6 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Kimi K2.6 and o3-mini specifications
Kimi K2.6o3-mini
ProviderMoonshot AIOpenAI
Noometry Index47.536.7
Released2026-04-202024-12-20
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window262K200K
Max output262K100K
Input $ / M tokens$0.95$1.10
Output $ / M tokens$4$4.40
Results tracked5151

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 50.5 (#41), o3-mini: 41.4 (#116)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
SciCode53.5%39.8%
WeirdML55.9%43.7%
LMArena Coding14881378
SWE-bench Verified76.7%—
Aider Polyglot—60.4%
LMArena WebDev1509—
GSO—1.3%
LiveBench Coding—82.7%
CadEval—54%
ALE-Bench1,093—

Agentic & Tool Use o3-mini leads

Kimi K2.6: 21.8 (#128), o3-mini: 29.3 (#79)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
OSWorld 2.04.6%—
Cybench—22.5%
ExploitBench18.4%—
GBAEval0.9%—
GDP.pdf12%—
Vending-Bench 26,205—

Reasoning Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 39.6 (#51), o3-mini: 16.3 (#295)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
CritPt8%0.3%
Chess Puzzles26%17%
LMArena Hard Prompts14701366
Mystery Game Puzzles18%7%
DTBench90.9%68.8%
LMCA37.3%19%
Epoch Capabilities Index151.03140.35
ARC-AGI-2—3%
SimpleBench—22.8%
NYT Connections (extended)87.2%—
ARC-AGI-1—34.5%
EBR-Bench2.4%—
LiveBench Reasoning—89.6%
LiveBench Data Analysis—70.6%
ForecastBench—59.6
LiveBench—75.9%

Math Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 56.8 (#34), o3-mini: 27.6 (#236)

Knowledge Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 53.9 (#48), o3-mini: 38.3 (#135)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
GPQA Diamond90.8%77%
SimpleQA Verified34.9%15.3%
LMArena Expert14911364
Confabulations—17.9%
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.8%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 31.8 (#95), o3-mini: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
LMArena Vision1282—
Blueprint-Bench 23.9%—
Furniture Assembly21.7%—
LMArena Document1451—

Multilingual Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 55.1 (#35), o3-mini: 45.9 (#159)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
LMArena Non-English14461319
LMArena Chinese15211379
LMArena French14711333
LMArena German14491303
LMArena Japanese14421286
LMArena Korean14281314
LMArena Russian14461304
LMArena Spanish14631321

Instruction Following Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 76.5 (#40), o3-mini: 75.3 (#67)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
LMArena Instruction Following14511338
LiveBench Instruction Following—84.4%

Long Context Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#50), o3-mini: 33.8 (#251)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
LMArena Longer Query14681343
Fiction.LiveBench—50%

Writing & Preference Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 68.7 (#25), o3-mini: 50.4 (#177)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6o3-mini
LMArena Text14551337
LMArena Creative Writing14341286
LMArena Multi-Turn14531320
Short-Story Creative Writing—61.7%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1725—
EQ-Bench 41202—
LiveBench Language—50.7%

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2.6 better than o3-mini?

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or o3-mini?

Kimi K2.6 is cheaper. It lists at $0.95 per million input tokens and $4 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

Is Kimi K2.6 or o3-mini better for coding?

Kimi K2.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 41.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Kimi K2.6 does, with 262K tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and o3-mini share?

32 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.

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