Model comparison
Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.5 Plus
Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 42.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 Plus costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Kimi K2.6 leads 54.0 to 46.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 90.9% for Kimi K2.6 and 80.5% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $2.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.95 / $4 for Kimi K2.6.
- Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Kimi K2.6 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 47.7 | 42.9 |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2026-02-16 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.95 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4 | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 15 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 50.7 (#43), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| ALE-Bench | 1,093 | 621.92 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1509 | — |
| SciCode | 53.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 55.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1488 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 21.9 (#137), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,205 | 0.54 |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| ExploitBench | 18.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 12% | — |
Reasoning Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 40.5 (#55), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.8 (#74)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 26% | 22% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 18% | 17% |
| DTBench | 90.9% | 80.5% |
| LMCA | 37.3% | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.05 | 146.78 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.2% | — |
| CritPt | 8% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 2.4% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1470 | — |
Math Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 57.0 (#41), Qwen3.5 Plus: 49.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 96.1% | 86.7% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 39% | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 14.6% | 2.1% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 57.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 25.6% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 72.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 16% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1475 | — |
Knowledge Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 54.0 (#54), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#83)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.8% | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.9% | 25.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.8% | 10.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1491 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 31.6 (#103), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 3.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 21.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1451 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 54.9 (#37), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1446 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1521 | — |
| LMArena French | 1471 | — |
| LMArena German | 1450 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1443 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1427 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1446 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 76.3 (#43), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1451 | — |
Long Context Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#52), Qwen3.5 Plus: 43.0 (#113)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1468 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 68.5 (#26), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1455 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1434 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1725 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1202 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1453 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Kimi K2.6 better than Qwen3.5 Plus?
Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 42.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 Plus costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.6 lists at $0.95 and $4.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and Qwen3.5 Plus share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.