Kimi K2 Thinking vs Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Updated October 21, 2026. 1 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Kimi K2 Thinking scores 63.4 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B 33.8 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking.
Pick Beam 1.0 501B A23B when output tokens cost 2.5x less, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 262K tokens.
- Shared results
- 1
- Kimi K2 Thinking only
- 29
- Beam 1.0 501B A23B only
- 27
- Like-for-like categories
- 1 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
No call
63.4 against 33.8, from different benchmarks with none in common.
Directional only
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has a AA Intelligence Index result, 22.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has a GPQA Diamond result, 78.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has a AIME result, 85.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has a MMLU Pro result, 81.1%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Beam 1.0 501B A23B leads, 1253 against 1113.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Beam 1.0 501B A23B takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Beam 1.0 501B A23B
Kimi K2 Thinking $0.0019, Beam 1.0 501B A23B $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Kimi K2 Thinking has the number, $0.61.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Kimi K2 Thinking 63.4 from 1 benchmark, Beam 1.0 501B A23B 33.8 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Web design, 17.5 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: websites: Kimi K2 Thinking 1113 against Beam 1.0 501B A23B 1253, 17.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Kimi K2 Thinking $2.50 against Beam 1.0 501B A23B $1.00 per million output tokens, 2.5x apart.
- Context window
- Kimi K2 Thinking takes 262K tokens, Beam 1.0 501B A23B 1.05M.
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 | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 0 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 1 |
CodingDirectional onlyFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index13 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 63.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1437 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 63.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 60.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.3% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 31.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 35.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| WeirdML | 42.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| ALE-Bench | 597.5 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1473 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1461 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1443 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1436 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.0 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.8 | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 93.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| METR time horizons | 59.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 78.5% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1442 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1447 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1451 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 85.4% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| 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 |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1459 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1475 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 81.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 80.2% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 65.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 60.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.7% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.8% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1430 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1376 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1433 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1430 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1113 | 1253 | Beam 1.0 501B A23B |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1222 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index15 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 68.1% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 72.0% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| CL-bench | 17.6% | Not measured | Only Kimi K2 Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1425 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1430 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1390 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1436 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1413 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1424 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1461 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1412 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1414 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1429 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1400 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1399 | Only Beam 1.0 501B A23B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 Thinking | Beam 1.0 501B A23B | 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
Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Beam 1.0 501B A23B 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 | Reflection Beam 1.0 501B A23B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Moonshot AI | Reflection |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | November 6, 2025 | October 16, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.60 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.00 |
| Coding index | 63.4 | 33.8 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.61 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Kimi K2 Thinking better than Beam 1.0 501B A23B for coding?
Kimi K2 Thinking scores 63.4 and Beam 1.0 501B A23B 33.8 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking. Pick Beam 1.0 501B A23B when output tokens cost 2.5x less, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 262K tokens.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking or Beam 1.0 501B A23B?
Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Beam 1.0 501B A23B costs $0.30 and $1.00. Cost per solved task is known for Kimi K2 Thinking only.
Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K2 Thinking or Beam 1.0 501B A23B?
Beam 1.0 501B A23B, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Kimi K2 Thinking vs Beam 1.0 501B A23B comparison based on?
1 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Kimi K2 Thinking's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Beam 1.0 501B A23B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.