Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2 Thinking
Updated October 21, 2026. 17 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
vs boards won of 17 shared
Decision reading
Pick Claude Opus 4.8 for coding: it scores 66.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 63.4 for Kimi K2 Thinking.
Pick Kimi K2 Thinking when output tokens cost 10.0x less, or when a solved task costs $0.61 against $2.17.
Model AClaude Opus 4.8Anthropic66.0/1002 independent benchmarks$2.17 per solved taskModel BKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AI63.4/1001 independent benchmark$0.61 per solved task
- Shared results
- 17
- Claude Opus 4.8 only
- 109
- Kimi K2 Thinking only
- 13
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 scores 66.0 against 63.4.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 41.8 against 22.0.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Opus 4.8 has a AA Agentic Index result, 41.9.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 92.4% against 78.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has a AIME result, 85.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 89.6% against 81.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 leads, 1258 against 1113.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Opus 4.8
Claude Opus 4.8 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Kimi K2 Thinking
Claude Opus 4.8 $0.018, Kimi K2 Thinking $0.0019 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Kimi K2 Thinking
Claude Opus 4.8 $2.17, Kimi K2 Thinking $0.61.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Opus 4.8 66.0 from 2 benchmarks, Kimi K2 Thinking 63.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Coding, 30.1 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- WeirdML: Claude Opus 4.8 82.9% against Kimi K2 Thinking 42.8%, 40.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Opus 4.8 $25.00 against Kimi K2 Thinking $2.50 per million output tokens, 10.0x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Opus 4.8 takes 1M tokens, Kimi K2 Thinking 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Opus 4.8 | Bars | Kimi K2 Thinking | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 16 | 1 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 63.4% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LiveBench coding | 77.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1556 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 74.3 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 87.8% | 63.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 88.6% | 60.2% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 23.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 82.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 47.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 1.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 71.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 59.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.3% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| SciCode | 54.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 58.3% | 31.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 35.7% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| FrontierCode | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| WeirdML | 82.9% | 42.8% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 597.5 | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1490 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1488 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1557 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1543 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 41.8 | 22.0 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 159.0 | 145.8 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 41.9 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1233 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1249 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1222 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1237 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1231 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1238 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1221 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1227 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench research | 81.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 96.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 48.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 30.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 43.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 69.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 4.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 11.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 94.4% | 93.0% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| APEX-Agents | 48.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 59.2% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 8.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 20.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 50.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| PostTrainBench | 33.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $5,787 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Search | 1204 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 92.4% | 78.5% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LiveBench reasoning | 89.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 86.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.0% | 83.8% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 48.7% | 23.8% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 91.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 92.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 72.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SimpleBench | 64.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 36.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| EBR-bench | 28.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1482 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1503 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1487 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1315 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1337 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 90.2% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 94.7 | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 94.7% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 98.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 80.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 56.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| ProofBench | 69.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1486 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.6% | 81.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 83.6% | 80.2% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.7% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.7% | 60.6% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.6% | 71.7% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 69.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 92.6% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 84.8% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 53.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1477 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1477 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1258 | 1113 | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1256 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1264 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1240 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1223 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1255 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1194 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1276 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LiveBench design | 78.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 66.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 68.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 54.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 85.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 70.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| IFBench | 62.2% | 68.1% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 77.7% | 72.0% | Claude Opus 4.8 |
| DTBench | 94.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMCA | 57.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 17.6% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 87.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1476 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1454 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1294 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1468 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1506 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1472 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1431 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1481 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1459 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1476 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1293 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1346 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1303 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1282 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1301 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1475 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 4.8 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Claude Opus 4.8$0.018Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking$0.0019Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.8$0.325Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking$0.037Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Opus 4.8$1.25Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking$0.145Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 | MoonshotAI Kimi K2 Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | Moonshot AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 27, 2026 | November 6, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $5.00 | $0.60 |
| Output $/Mtok | $25.00 | $2.50 |
| Coding index | 66.0 | 63.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $2.17 | $0.61 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Opus 4.8 better than Kimi K2 Thinking for coding?
Pick Claude Opus 4.8 for coding: it scores 66.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 63.4 for Kimi K2 Thinking. Pick Kimi K2 Thinking when output tokens cost 10.0x less, or when a solved task costs $0.61 against $2.17.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
Claude Opus 4.8 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 and $2.50. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Claude Opus 4.8 costs $2.17 and Kimi K2 Thinking $0.61.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 4.8 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
Claude Opus 4.8, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 4.8 vs Kimi K2 Thinking comparison based on?
17 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Opus 4.8's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Kimi K2 Thinking's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.