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Kimi K3 vs MiniMax M2.5

Kimi K3 leads MiniMax M2.5 on coding, 62.3 to 37.2 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M2.5 costs 12.5x less per output token ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 56 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace Kimi K3 Replace MiniMax M2.5
Kimi K3Moonshot AI
Coding
62.3
Overall
66.5
Output $/M
$15.00
56
MiniMax M2.5MiniMax
Coding
37.2
Overall
37.3
Output $/M
$1.20
0
vs boards won of 56 shared

Kimi K3 or MiniMax M2.5: which to pick

Pick Kimi K3 for coding: it scores 62.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5.

Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $0.81).

Model AKimi K3Moonshot AI62.3/1006 independent benchmarks$0.81 per solved taskModel BMiniMax M2.5MiniMax37.2/1003 independent benchmarks$0.62 per solved task
Shared results
56
Kimi K3 only
61
MiniMax M2.5 only
12
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.

At a glance

Coding index
Kimi K3 62.3 from 6 benchmarks, MiniMax M2.5 37.2 from 3 benchmarks.
Widest category
Math, 41.2 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
Widest single gap
ProofBench: Kimi K3 87.0% against MiniMax M2.5 4.0%, 83.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price
Kimi K3 $15.00 against MiniMax M2.5 $1.20 per million output tokens, 12.5x apart.
Context window
Kimi K3 takes 1.05M 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.

Boards won, where both have a result
CategoryKimi K3BarsMiniMax M2.5Ties
Coding90
Intelligence20
Agentic work10
Reasoning80
Math30
Knowledge80
Web design70
General180
All shared boards560
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index90
Coding benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
SWE-bench VerifiedNot measured75.8%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
SWE-bench MultilingualNot measured68.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LiveBench coding59.3%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LMArena WebDev16551386Kimi K3
AA Coding Index76.2Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)87.2%79.2%Kimi K3
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)93.4%74.2%Kimi K3
Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI)17.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)85.0%14.8%Kimi K3
Code migration (Vals AI)16.1%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
ProgramBench (Vals AI)2.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
IOI (Vals AI)48.9%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI)80.9%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI)44.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI)18.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
CyberBench (Vals AI)75.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
SciCode59.5%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)Not measured34.8%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Terminal-BenchNot measured42.7%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
FrontierCode44.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
FrontierSWE25.9%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
WeirdML82.6%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
ALE-Bench1524.5618.2Kimi K3
LMArena Text: coding15081380Kimi K3
LMArena Text: software and IT14991383Kimi K3
LMArena WebDev: React16701374Kimi K3
LMArena WebDev: HTML16441414Kimi K3
LMArena WebDev: from an image1579Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
Intelligence benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
AA Intelligence Index43.622.8Kimi K3
Epoch Capabilities Index157.9146.6Kimi K3
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
Agentic work benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
AA Agentic Index50.0Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building web apps1295Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps1315Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building mobile apps1269Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building Android apps1253Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building Godot games1223Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: agents building games1252Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: HTML slides1206Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: PowerPoint slides1247Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Design Arena: spreadsheets1070Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LiveBench research79.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LiveBench browser16.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LiveBench long agentic42.8%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Finance Agent (Vals AI)53.1%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI)33.4%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Legal Research Bench (Vals AI)46.1%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI)12.9%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI)66.7%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
BioMysteryBench (Vals AI)72.6%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI)1.4%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Time Horizon Index (Vals AI)10.5%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
τ²-Bench TelecomNot measured95.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
APEX-Agents47.8%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
PostTrainBench32.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Vending-Bench 2$5,165-$23Kimi K3
Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80
Reasoning benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
GPQA Diamond92.9%82.1%Kimi K3
LiveBench reasoning90.7%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
MMMU Pro (Vals AI)88.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)93.5%84.8%Kimi K3
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)46.9%20.5%Kimi K3
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)93.1%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
ARC-AGI94.5%63.7%Kimi K3
ARC-AGI-260.4%4.9%Kimi K3
SimpleBench60.7%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Chess puzzles37.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Mystery game puzzles26.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts14951372Kimi K3
LMArena Text: expert15201378Kimi K3
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English14961384Kimi K3
Kagi LLM BenchmarkNot measured55.2%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
Math benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
AIMENot measured88.8%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
OTIS Mock AIME97.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 372.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
FrontierMath, tier 439.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
ProofBench87.0%4.0%Kimi K3
LMArena Text: math14941378Kimi K3
LMArena Text: mathematical work15051378Kimi K3
Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index80
Knowledge benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
MMLU Pro88.0%80.1%Kimi K3
LegalBench (Vals AI)86.2%80.0%Kimi K3
CaseLaw (Vals AI)Not measured53.5%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)71.6%59.6%Kimi K3
TaxEval (Vals AI)75.7%68.2%Kimi K3
MortgageTax (Vals AI)66.3%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
MedQA (Vals AI)Not measured92.5%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
MedCode (Vals AI)49.4%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
SimpleQA Verified50.6%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LMArena Text: science15081369Kimi K3
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare14891357Kimi K3
LMArena Text: legal and government15031366Kimi K3
LMArena Text: business and finance14701356Kimi K3
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
Web design benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
Design Arena: websites13341222Kimi K3
Design Arena: UI components13411173Kimi K3
Design Arena: game dev13581176Kimi K3
Design Arena: data viz13511172Kimi K3
Design Arena: 3D13871170Kimi K3
Design Arena: all code categories13601207Kimi K3
Design Arena: SVG13021150Kimi K3
LiveBench design77.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index180
General benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
Vals Index53.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LiveBench data analysis78.7%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI)68.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
SAGE (Vals AI)52.8%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
MedScribe (Vals AI)88.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Vals Multimodal Index73.4%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
IFBenchNot measured71.6%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)88.7%73.3%Kimi K3
DTBench91.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
LMCA52.7%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
CL-benchNot measured11.4%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
Surface Evolver Bench95.0%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
Furniture assembly34.2%Not measuredOnly Kimi K3 measured
CL-bench LifeNot measured6.3%Only MiniMax M2.5 measured
LMArena Text14761359Kimi K3
LMArena Text: instruction following14851353Kimi K3
LMArena Text: creative writing14571331Kimi K3
LMArena Text: English14811380Kimi K3
LMArena Text: non-English14661338Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Chinese15291393Kimi K3
LMArena Text: German14901361Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Japanese14941171Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Korean14601233Kimi K3
LMArena Text: French14921363Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Spanish14721353Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Russian14851359Kimi K3
LMArena Text: Polish14581334Kimi K3
LMArena Text: multi-turn14891364Kimi K3
LMArena Text: longer queries14941366Kimi K3
LMArena Text: writing and language14711345Kimi K3
LMArena Text: entertainment and media14531329Kimi K3
Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
Image generation benchmarks for Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
BenchmarkKimi K3MiniMax M2.5Leader
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 K3$0.011Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.0009Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

Kimi K3$0.195Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.019Fits in one request

MiniMax M2.5 costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

Kimi K3$0.750Fits in one request
MiniMax M2.5$0.072Exceeds the context window

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.

Specifications of Kimi K3 and MiniMax M2.5
SpecificationMoonshotAI Kimi K3MiniMax M2.5
MakerMoonshot AIMiniMax
WeightsOpen weightsOpen weights
ReleasedJuly 16, 2026February 12, 2026
Context window1.05M205K
Input $/Mtok$3.00$0.30
Output $/Mtok$15.00$1.20
Coding index62.337.2
Independent measurements behind it63
Cost per solved task$0.81$0.62
SourceOpenRouter listingOpenRouter listing

Questions

Is Kimi K3 better than MiniMax M2.5 for coding?

Pick Kimi K3 for coding: it scores 62.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 37.2 for MiniMax M2.5. Pick MiniMax M2.5 for output tokens 12.5x cheaper ($1.20 vs $15.00 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.62 against $0.81).

Which is cheaper, Kimi K3 or MiniMax M2.5?

Kimi K3 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M2.5 costs $0.30 and $1.20. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Kimi K3 costs $0.81 and MiniMax M2.5 $0.62.

Which has the bigger context window, Kimi K3 or MiniMax M2.5?

Kimi K3, with 1.05M tokens against 205K.

How many benchmarks is the Kimi K3 vs MiniMax M2.5 comparison based on?

56 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Kimi K3's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M2.5's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

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<p style="font:13px/1.4 sans-serif;margin:6px 0 0">Source: <a href="https://llmbenchmark.ai/compare/kimi-k3-vs-minimax-minimax-m2-5">LLMBenchmark.ai, Kimi K3 vs MiniMax M2.5</a></p>