Kimi K2.6 vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash leads Kimi K2.6 on coding, 59.0 to 52.1 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs 6.7x less per output token ($0.60 vs $4.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 10 benchmarks have a result for both.
Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash: which to pick
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding: it scores 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 52.1 for Kimi K2.6.
Pick Kimi K2.6 for work measured by Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 10
- Kimi K2.6 only
- 101
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash only
- 10
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
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, six public coding benchmarks
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash scores 59.0 against 52.1.
3 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash leads, 42.7 against 27.0.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Kimi K2.6 has a AA Agentic Index result, 20.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Kimi K2.6 has a GPQA Diamond result, 89.1%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Kimi K2.6 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Kimi K2.6 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1269.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash has a Vals Index result, 53.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
MiniMax M3.1 Flash takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Kimi K2.6 $0.0029, MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Kimi K2.6 has the number, $0.35.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K2.6 52.1 from 3 benchmarks, MiniMax M3.1 Flash 59.0 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 19.0 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Kimi K2.6 37.9% against MiniMax M3.1 Flash 73.9%, 36.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K2.6 $4.00 against MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.60 per million output tokens, 6.7x apart.
- Context window
- Kimi K2.6 takes 262K tokens, MiniMax M3.1 Flash 1M.
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 K2.6 | Bars | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 5 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 9 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index05
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 83.9% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1509 | 1587 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| AA Coding Index | 61.8 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 86.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 76.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.3% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 37.9% | 73.9% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 27.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 53.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| SciCode | 51.5% | 53.4% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 43.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 55.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1092.7 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1489 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1484 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1505 | 1609 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1485 | 1529 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1521 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 27.0 | 42.7 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.9 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 20.5 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1268 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1155 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1156 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1160 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1120 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1141 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1124 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1102 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1276 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 72.7% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 92.0% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 34.7% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 44.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 12.4% | 32.1% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 15.9% | 34.1% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.5% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 57.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 95.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $6,205 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 89.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 82.9% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 86.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 37.5% | 48.0% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 20.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 18.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| EBR-bench | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1470 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1491 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1471 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1298 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1310 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 96.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 57.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 25.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 16.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1474 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1480 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| MathArena | 24.5% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 61.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 65.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 40.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1468 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1457 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1462 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1445 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1269 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1264 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1250 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1249 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1267 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1271 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1180 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1165 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 74.0% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 53.8% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 71.4% | Only MiniMax M3.1 Flash measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 56.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 50.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 78.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 56.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| IFBench | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 81.0% | 79.7% | Kimi K2.6 |
| DTBench | 90.9% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMCA | 37.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 21.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| ExploitBench | 18.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1455 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1451 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1434 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1282 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1460 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1446 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1520 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1451 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1443 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1427 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1471 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1464 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1446 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1438 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1453 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1468 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1439 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1428 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1287 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1346 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1291 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1280 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1273 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1451 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1202 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | 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
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash 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 K2.6 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | MiniMax |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 20, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.95 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $4.00 | $0.60 |
| Coding index | 52.1 | 59.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.35 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K2.6 better than MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding?
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding: it scores 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 52.1 for Kimi K2.6. Pick Kimi K2.6 for work measured by Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
Kimi K2.6 costs $0.95 per million input tokens and $4.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.60. Cost per solved task is known for Kimi K2.6 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K2.6 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
MiniMax M3.1 Flash, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K2.6 vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash comparison based on?
10 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Kimi K2.6's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M3.1 Flash's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.