Kimi K3 vs Kimi K2.6
Kimi K3 vs Kimi K2.6: which AI model is cheaper, has the larger context window and more capabilities? Side-by-side comparison updated daily.
Quick verdict
- Kimi K2.6 is 4.5× cheaper than Kimi K3 for the same mix of input and output tokens.
- Kimi K3 has the larger context window (1M), useful for long documents and big codebases.
- Kimi K3 is the more recent release (Jul 16, 2026).
- Kimi K3 scores higher on independent tests (overall index 157.7 vs 151.0).
- Choose Kimi K2.6 if cost matters most; choose Kimi K3 if you need its specific strengths above. For the best results, test both on your own prompts.
| Kimi K3 | Kimi K2.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Moonshot AI | Moonshot AI |
| Released | Jul 16, 2026 ● | Apr 20, 2026 |
| Overall index | 157.7 ● | 151.0 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| GPQA Diamond | 93.1% ● | 90.8% |
| AIME math | 97.2% ● | 96.1% |
| FrontierMath | 72.2% ● | 57.2% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 50.6% ● | 34.9% |
| Input (per 1M tokens) | $3 | $0.65 ● |
| Output (per 1M tokens) | $15 | $3.41 ● |
| Cost for 1M input + 1M output tokens | $18.00 | $4.06 ● |
| Providers | 22 ● | 18 |
| Context | 1M ● | 256K |
| Max output | 944K ● | 236K |
| Inputs | Text, Image, Video ● | Text, Image |
| Outputs | Text | Text |
| Reasoning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tool use | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open weights | ✓ | ✓ |