Kimi K2.5 vs Inkling
Updated October 21, 2026. 69 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Kimi K2.5 for coding: it scores 58.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.7 for Inkling.
Pick Inkling when the context window is larger, 524K against 262K tokens, or when what matters is AA Coding Index or LiveCodeBench (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 69
- Kimi K2.5 only
- 29
- Inkling only
- 33
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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
Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 scores 58.5 against 49.7.
2 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 25.0 against 23.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling has a AA Agentic Index result, 22.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Inkling
Inkling leads, 87.1% against 84.1%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Kimi K2.5 has a AIME result, 95.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Inkling
Inkling leads, 86.3% against 85.9%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 leads, 1249 against 1224.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling has a Vals Index result, 29.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling
Inkling takes 524K tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 $0.0018, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 $0.24, Inkling $0.76.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K2.5 58.5 from 2 benchmarks, Inkling 49.7 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 10.2 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI-2: Kimi K2.5 11.8% against Inkling 36.5%, 24.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K2.5 $2.50 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 1.6x apart.
- Context window
- Kimi K2.5 takes 262K tokens, Inkling 524K.
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 | Kimi K2.5 | Bars | Inkling | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 6 | 7 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 4 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 6 | ||
| Math | 1 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 7 | ||
| Web design | 8 | 0 | ||
| General | 14 | 6 | ||
| All shared boards | 36 | 33 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index67
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 70.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1437 | 1414 | Kimi K2.5 |
| AA Coding Index | 46.8 | 52.1 | Inkling |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 83.9% | 85.5% | Inkling |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 17.5% | 19.2% | Inkling |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 7.0% | 11.8% | Inkling |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 42.0% | 47.6% | Inkling |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 26.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 47.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 43.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| WeirdML | 45.6% | 32.3% | Kimi K2.5 |
| ALE-Bench | 821.6 | 946.0 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1483 | 1466 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1471 | 1465 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1429 | 1404 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1426 | 1399 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1439 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 23.5 | 25.0 | Inkling |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.1 | 148.4 | Inkling |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 22.5 | Only Inkling measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1136 | 1196 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1114 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1147 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1124 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1219 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 59.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 16.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 14.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 35.8% | 46.6% | Inkling |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 15.9% | 28.4% | Inkling |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 28.5% | 38.4% | Inkling |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 95.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 33.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| OSWorld | 63.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $1,198 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index46
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 84.1% | 87.1% | Inkling |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 84.3% | 78.5% | Kimi K2.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.9% | 87.2% | Kimi K2.5 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 30.7% | 31.9% | Inkling |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| ARC-AGI | 65.3% | 79.5% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 11.8% | 36.5% | Inkling |
| SimpleBench | 46.8% | 50.0% | Inkling |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 21.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1453 | 1451 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1466 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1460 | 1448 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1282 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1297 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 88.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 33.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1470 | 1479 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1473 | 1460 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index37
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 85.9% | 86.3% | Inkling |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 58.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 68.3% | 68.6% | Inkling |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.2% | 75.3% | Inkling |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 66.5% | 64.0% | Kimi K2.5 |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 39.3% | 41.2% | Inkling |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.3% | 40.3% | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: science | 1459 | 1455 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1448 | 1447 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1441 | 1448 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1427 | 1438 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1249 | 1224 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1236 | 1200 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1207 | 1166 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1219 | 1160 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1205 | 1161 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1236 | 1206 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1149 | 1109 | Kimi K2.5 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1165 | 1089 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Inkling measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index146
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 72.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 49.9% | 36.5% | Kimi K2.5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 76.4% | 85.4% | Inkling |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| IFBench | 70.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 78.0% | 77.3% | Kimi K2.5 |
| DTBench | Not measured | 87.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 37.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 86.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| CL-bench | 19.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| CL-bench Life | 13.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1445 | 1442 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1431 | 1425 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1422 | 1390 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Vision | 1269 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1453 | 1442 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1433 | 1434 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1494 | 1493 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1441 | 1445 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1423 | 1429 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1412 | 1403 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: French | 1454 | 1455 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1450 | 1449 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1435 | 1430 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1445 | 1450 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1444 | 1437 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1445 | 1435 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1425 | 1404 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1417 | 1394 | Kimi K2.5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1274 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1328 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1276 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1284 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1257 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1285 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1269 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Inkling | 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
Kimi K2.5 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Kimi K2.5 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Kimi K2.5 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 | MoonshotAI Kimi K2.5 | Thinking Machines Inkling |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | January 27, 2026 | July 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.50 | $1.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $4.05 |
| Coding index | 58.5 | 49.7 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.24 | $0.76 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K2.5 better than Inkling for coding?
Pick Kimi K2.5 for coding: it scores 58.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 49.7 for Inkling. Pick Inkling when the context window is larger, 524K against 262K tokens, or when what matters is AA Coding Index or LiveCodeBench (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.5 or Inkling?
Kimi K2.5 costs $0.50 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $1.00 and $4.05. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Kimi K2.5 costs $0.24 and Inkling $0.76.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K2.5 or Inkling?
Inkling, with 524K tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K2.5 vs Inkling comparison based on?
69 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Kimi K2.5's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Inkling's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.