Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Kimi K2.5

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 48.1 on the Noometry Index. Kimi K2.5 costs 6.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 41 shared benchmarks.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Anthropic

50.3

Rank #50 Confirmed

Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI

48.1

Rank #57 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 41 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 4.6 scores higher in 6 categories and Kimi K2.5 in 4 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads 46.1 to 31.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-2: 60.4% for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 11.8% for Kimi K2.5.
  • Kimi K2.5 is cheaper at $0.45 / $2.25 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Claude Sonnet 4.6.
  • Claude Sonnet 4.6 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
  • Kimi K2.5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Kimi K2.5 specifications
Claude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
ProviderAnthropicMoonshot AI
Noometry Index50.348.1
Released2026-02-172026-01-27
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1M262K
Max output128K262K
Input $ / M tokens$3$0.45
Output $ / M tokens$15$2.25
Results tracked5751

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.3 (#67), Kimi K2.5: 48.8 (#53)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
SWE-bench Verified75.2%73.8%
LMArena WebDev15221437
SciCode46.8%49%
WeirdML66.1%45.6%
LMArena Coding15041474
ALE-Bench1,327821.65
DeepSWE29.9%—
FrontierCode24.3%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—70.8%
SWE-bench Multilingual—67.3%

Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 39.1 (#28), Kimi K2.5: 34.2 (#48)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
Terminal-Bench53.4%43.2%
OSWorld72.1%63.3%
Vending-Bench 27,2041,198
APEX-Agents43%—
OSWorld 2.09.3%—
DeepResearch Bench54.9%—
ExploitBench23.6%—
GBAEval48.8%—
GDP.pdf18%—
LMArena Search1221—

Reasoning Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 46.1 (#45), Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#80)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
ARC-AGI-260.4%11.8%
NYT Connections (extended)80.9%69.9%
ARC-AGI-186.5%65.3%
CritPt3.1%3.1%
Chess Puzzles13%12%
Thematic Generalization76.3%69.4%
LMArena Hard Prompts14841453
Epoch Capabilities Index152.24148.03
SimpleBench—46.8%
Kagi LLM Benchmark—78.5%
EnigmaEval—3.4%
Mystery Game Puzzles16%—
DTBench89.9%—
LMCA46.5%—
ForecastBench62—

Math Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 52.9 (#49), Kimi K2.5: 51.8 (#53)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202585.8%92.2%
LMArena Math14621470
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)32.4%27.9%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)8.3%4.2%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—62.3%
ProofBench45%—

Knowledge Kimi K2.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 51.7 (#65), Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#56)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
GPQA Diamond87.4%87.6%
SimpleQA Verified35.5%34.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.6%14.2%
LMArena Expert15001466
Humanity's Last Exam—24.4%

Multimodal Kimi K2.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 38.0 (#68), Kimi K2.5: 41.1 (#39)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
LMArena Vision12831269
LMArena Document14821430
Blueprint-Bench 26.7%—

Multilingual Too close to call

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 54.4 (#41), Kimi K2.5: 53.9 (#53)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
LMArena Non-English14401433
LMArena Chinese14911495
LMArena French14651454
LMArena German14281441
LMArena Japanese14201421
LMArena Korean14111410
LMArena Russian14401435
LMArena Spanish14641450

Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 77.4 (#25), Kimi K2.5: 75.3 (#64)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
LMArena Instruction Following14751431

Long Context Kimi K2.5 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 45.3 (#44), Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
LMArena Longer Query14791445
Fiction.LiveBench—86.1%
CL-bench—19.3%
CL-bench Life—13.2%

Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads

Claude Sonnet 4.6: 70.2 (#22), Kimi K2.5: 65.1 (#53)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6Kimi K2.5
LMArena Text14581445
LMArena Creative Writing14351423
EQ-Bench Creative Writing18101579
LMArena Multi-Turn14641444
EQ-Bench 41207—

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than Kimi K2.5?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 48.1 on the Noometry Index. Kimi K2.5 costs 6.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 4.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $2.25 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 4.6 lists at $3 and $15.

Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi K2.5 better for coding?

Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.8 versus 46.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Kimi K2.5 share?

41 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 4.6 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2.5 has 51.

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