Kimi K2 Thinking vs MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads Kimi K2 Thinking on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 22.8 to 22.0, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 2.1x less per output token ($1.20 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 23 benchmarks have a result for both.
Kimi K2 Thinking or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index; Kimi K2 Thinking has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Kimi K2 Thinking for a lower cost per solved task ($0.61 against $0.62) and a larger context window (262K against 205K tokens).
- Shared results
- 23
- Kimi K2 Thinking only
- 7
- MiniMax M2.5 only
- 45
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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
No call
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 22.8 against 22.0.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 82.1% against 78.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 88.8% against 85.4%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Kimi K2 Thinking
Kimi K2 Thinking leads, 81.1% against 80.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
MiniMax M2.5
MiniMax M2.5 leads, 1222 against 1113.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Kimi K2 Thinking
Kimi K2 Thinking takes 262K tokens against 205K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M2.5
Kimi K2 Thinking $0.0019, MiniMax M2.5 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Kimi K2 Thinking
Kimi K2 Thinking $0.61, MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K2 Thinking not benchmarked, MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Web design, 13.6 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- LiveCodeBench (Vals AI): Kimi K2 Thinking 63.1% against MiniMax M2.5 79.2%, 16.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K2 Thinking $2.50 against MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 per million output tokens, 2.1x apart.
- Context window
- Kimi K2 Thinking takes 262K tokens, MiniMax M2.5 205K.
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 Thinking | Bars | MiniMax M2.5 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 6 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 2 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 6 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 1 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 8 | 15 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index06
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 63.4% | 75.8% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | Not measured | 68.3% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1386 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 63.1% | 79.2% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 60.2% | 74.2% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.8% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 31.1% | 34.8% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Terminal-Bench | 35.7% | 42.7% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| WeirdML | 42.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| ALE-Bench | 597.5 | 618.2 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1380 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1383 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1374 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1414 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.0 | 22.8 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.8 | 146.6 | MiniMax M2.5 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 93.0% | 95.3% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| METR time horizons | 59.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | -$23 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 78.5% | 82.1% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.8% | 84.8% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.8% | 20.5% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 63.7% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 4.9% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1372 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1378 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1384 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 55.2% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 85.4% | 88.8% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 90.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| AA Math Index | 94.7 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 4.0% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1378 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1378 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 81.1% | 80.1% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 80.2% | 80.0% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 65.7% | 53.5% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 60.6% | 59.6% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.7% | 68.2% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.6% | 92.5% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1369 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1357 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1366 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1356 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1113 | 1222 | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1173 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1176 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1172 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1170 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1207 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1150 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 68.1% | 71.6% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 72.0% | 73.3% | MiniMax M2.5 |
| CL-bench | 17.6% | 11.4% | Kimi K2 Thinking |
| CL-bench Life | Not measured | 6.3% | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1359 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1353 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1331 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1380 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1338 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1393 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1361 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1171 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1233 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1363 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1353 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1359 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1334 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1364 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1366 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1345 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1329 | Only MiniMax M2.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 | 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 M2.5 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M2.5 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M2.5 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 Thinking | MiniMax M2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | MiniMax |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | November 6, 2025 | February 12, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 205K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.60 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 37.2 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.61 | $0.62 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K2 Thinking better than MiniMax M2.5 for coding?
Only MiniMax M2.5 has a coding score, 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index; Kimi K2 Thinking has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Kimi K2 Thinking for a lower cost per solved task ($0.61 against $0.62) and a larger context window (262K against 205K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking or MiniMax M2.5?
Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.61 and MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K2 Thinking or MiniMax M2.5?
Kimi K2 Thinking, with 262K tokens against 205K.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K2 Thinking vs MiniMax M2.5 comparison based on?
23 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Kimi K2 Thinking's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and MiniMax M2.5's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.