Model comparison

DeepSeek-V3 vs Kimi K2.5

Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 2.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 29 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-V3 DeepSeek

39.5

Rank #166 Confirmed

Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI

48.1

Rank #57 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 29 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 0 categories and Kimi K2.5 in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Kimi K2.5 leads 51.8 to 32.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 37.8% for DeepSeek-V3 and 92.2% for Kimi K2.5.
  • DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper at $0.24 / $0.90 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $2.25 for Kimi K2.5.
  • Kimi K2.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 164K.

Side by side

DeepSeek-V3 and Kimi K2.5 specifications
DeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
ProviderDeepSeekMoonshot AI
Noometry Index39.548.1
Released2024-12-262026-01-27
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window164K262K
Max output164K262K
Input $ / M tokens$0.24$0.45
Output $ / M tokens$0.90$2.25
Results tracked6051

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 42.3 (#106), Kimi K2.5: 48.8 (#53)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
SciCode35.8%49%
WeirdML36.1%45.6%
LMArena Coding13681474
SWE-bench Verified—73.8%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—70.8%
Aider Polyglot55.1%—
LMArena WebDev—1437
SWE-bench Multilingual—67.3%
BigCodeBench Instruct50%—
LiveBench Coding70.9%—
BigCodeBench Complete62.2%—
ALE-Bench—821.65
HumanEval+86.6%—
MBPP+73%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Kimi K2.5: 34.2 (#48)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
Terminal-Bench—43.2%
OSWorld—63.3%
METR Time Horizons49.6%—
Vending-Bench 2—1,198

Reasoning Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 20.5 (#236), Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#80)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
SimpleBench27.2%46.8%
Kagi LLM Benchmark52.3%78.5%
CritPt0%3.1%
LMArena Hard Prompts13651453
Epoch Capabilities Index135.94148.03
ARC-AGI-2—11.8%
NYT Connections (extended)—69.9%
ARC-AGI-1—65.3%
Chess Puzzles—12%
EnigmaEval—3.4%
Thematic Generalization—69.4%
LiveBench Reasoning65.8%—
DTBench64.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis60.9%—
LMCA15.5%—
BIG-Bench Hard87.5%—
ForecastBench59.1—
HellaSwag88.9%—
LiveBench66.9%—
PIQA84.7%—
WinoGrande85.2%—

Math Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 32.1 (#219), Kimi K2.5: 51.8 (#53)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202537.8%92.2%
LMArena Math13731470
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1.7%27.9%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—62.3%
Omni-MATH40.3%—
LiveBench Math73.5%—
MATH Level 575.5%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—4.2%

Knowledge Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#155), Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#56)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
GPQA Diamond67.6%87.6%
Vectara Hallucination Rate6.1%14.2%
LMArena Expert13511466
Humanity's Last Exam—24.4%
SimpleQA Verified—34.3%
MMLU-Pro72.3%—
Confabulations26.1%—
GPQA (HELM)53.8%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge95.3%—
MMLU87.2%—
TriviaQA82.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Kimi K2.5: 41.1 (#39)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
LMArena Vision—1269
LMArena Document—1430

Multilingual Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 48.5 (#143), Kimi K2.5: 53.9 (#53)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
LMArena Non-English13581433
LMArena Chinese13911495
LMArena French13851454
LMArena German13741441
LMArena Japanese13331421
LMArena Korean13191410
LMArena Russian13731435
LMArena Spanish13581450

Instruction Following Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 72.8 (#130), Kimi K2.5: 75.3 (#64)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
LMArena Instruction Following13451431
LiveBench Instruction Following81.5%—
IFEval83.2%—

Long Context Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#253), Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
Fiction.LiveBench50%86.1%
LMArena Longer Query13521445
CL-bench—19.3%
CL-bench Life—13.2%

Writing & Preference Kimi K2.5 leads

DeepSeek-V3: 57.4 (#130), Kimi K2.5: 65.1 (#53)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5
LMArena Text13751445
LMArena Creative Writing13641423
EQ-Bench Creative Writing14721579
LMArena Multi-Turn13891444
Short-Story Creative Writing77%—
WildBench83%—
LiveBench Language49.1%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 2.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Kimi K2.5?

DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.24 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.5 lists at $0.45 and $2.25.

Is DeepSeek-V3 or Kimi K2.5 better for coding?

Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.8 versus 42.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Kimi K2.5 does, with 262K tokens against 164K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Kimi K2.5 share?

29 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2.5 has 51.

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