GPT-5.6 Terra vs Kimi K2 Thinking
Updated October 21, 2026. 18 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 18 shared
Decision reading
Pick GPT-5.6 Terra for coding: it scores 69.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 63.4 for Kimi K2 Thinking.
Pick Kimi K2 Thinking when output tokens cost 4.8x less, or when the benchmark that matters is τ²-Bench Telecom, where it leads.
Model AGPT-5.6 TerraOpenAI69.0/1002 independent benchmarks$0.42 per solved taskModel BKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AI63.4/1001 independent benchmark$0.61 per solved task
- Shared results
- 18
- GPT-5.6 Terra only
- 106
- Kimi K2 Thinking only
- 12
- 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
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra scores 69.0 against 63.4.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 42.1 against 22.0.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a AA Agentic Index result, 43.2.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 90.9% 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
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 86.7% against 81.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 1269 against 1113.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Kimi K2 Thinking
GPT-5.6 Terra $0.0080, Kimi K2 Thinking $0.0019 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra $0.42, Kimi K2 Thinking $0.61.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-5.6 Terra 69.0 from 2 benchmarks, Kimi K2 Thinking 63.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Coding, 34.1 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: GPT-5.6 Terra 1951.4 against Kimi K2 Thinking 597.5, 45.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-5.6 Terra $12.00 against Kimi K2 Thinking $2.50 per million output tokens, 4.8x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M 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 | GPT-5.6 Terra | Bars | Kimi K2 Thinking | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 5 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 17 | 1 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index50
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 63.4% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LiveBench coding | 86.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| AA Coding Index | 76.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.9% | 63.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.4% | 60.2% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 22.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 74.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 47.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 77.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 14.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 58.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 72.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.3% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| SciCode | 55.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 62.9% | 31.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 35.7% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| FrontierCode | 41.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| WeirdML | 78.3% | 42.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| ALE-Bench | 1951.4 | 597.5 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1485 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1482 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1513 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1526 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1541 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 42.1 | 22.0 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 160.1 | 145.8 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 43.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1120 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1061 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1112 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1066 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1082 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1108 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1130 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench research | 60.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 48.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 9.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 54.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 30.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 41.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 66.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 10.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 86.3% | 93.0% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| APEX-Agents | 58.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 59.2% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| BALROG | 53.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $7,343 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | 78.5% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LiveBench reasoning | 90.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 86.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.5% | 83.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.9% | 23.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ARC-AGI | 96.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 83.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SimpleBench | 48.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Chess puzzles | 47.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 35.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1469 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1496 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1465 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1295 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1312 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | 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 | 99.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 70.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ProofBench | 74.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1465 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1478 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra 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 | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.7% | 81.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 85.1% | 80.2% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.7% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 65.3% | 60.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 76.2% | 71.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 92.6% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 43.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 84.8% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 43.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1452 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1430 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1461 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1448 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra 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 | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1269 | 1113 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1259 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1230 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1240 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1135 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1241 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1220 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1177 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench design | 76.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | Kimi K2 Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 62.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 47.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 82.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 65.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| IFBench | 71.2% | 68.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 83.0% | 72.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| DTBench | 93.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMCA | 54.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 17.6% | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 83.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Furniture assembly | 54.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text | 1448 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1456 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1413 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1271 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1449 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1441 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1514 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1460 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1454 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1427 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1466 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1452 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1446 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1453 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1454 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1431 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1418 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1272 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1337 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1278 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1236 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1248 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Document | 1472 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra 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 | GPT-5.6 Terra | 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
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.0080Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking$0.0019Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.136Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking$0.037Fits in one request
Kimi K2 Thinking costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Terra$0.520Fits 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 | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra | MoonshotAI Kimi K2 Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Moonshot AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | July 9, 2026 | November 6, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.60 |
| Output $/Mtok | $12.00 | $2.50 |
| Coding index | 69.0 | 63.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.42 | $0.61 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-5.6 Terra better than Kimi K2 Thinking for coding?
Pick GPT-5.6 Terra for coding: it scores 69.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 63.4 for Kimi K2 Thinking. Pick Kimi K2 Thinking when output tokens cost 4.8x less, or when the benchmark that matters is τ²-Bench Telecom, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Terra or Kimi K2 Thinking?
GPT-5.6 Terra costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $12.00 per million output tokens; Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 and $2.50. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, GPT-5.6 Terra costs $0.42 and Kimi K2 Thinking $0.61.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5.6 Terra or Kimi K2 Thinking?
GPT-5.6 Terra, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-5.6 Terra vs Kimi K2 Thinking comparison based on?
18 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. GPT-5.6 Terra'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.