Model comparison

DeepSeek-V3 vs Kimi K2.5 Instant

Kimi K2.5 Instant is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-V3 DeepSeek

39.2

Rank #157 Confirmed

Kimi K2.5 Instant Moonshot AI

42.9

Rank #92 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 0 categories and Kimi K2.5 Instant in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where Kimi K2.5 Instant leads 43.8 to 34.0.

Side by side

DeepSeek-V3 and Kimi K2.5 Instant specifications
DeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
ProviderDeepSeekMoonshot AI
Noometry Index39.242.9
Released2024-12-26—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window164K—
Max output164K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.24—
Output $ / M tokens$0.90—
Results tracked6018

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

DeepSeek-V3: 41.9 (#99), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 42.3 (#95)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Coding13681483
Aider Polyglot55.1%—
LMArena WebDev—1404
SciCode35.8%—
WeirdML36.1%—
BigCodeBench Instruct50%—
LiveBench Coding70.9%—
BigCodeBench Complete62.2%—
HumanEval+86.6%—
MBPP+73%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Kimi K2.5 Instant: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
METR Time Horizons49.6%—

Reasoning Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 20.0 (#226), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 28.5 (#88)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Hard Prompts13651443
SimpleBench27.2%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark52.3%—
CritPt0%—
LiveBench Reasoning65.8%—
DTBench64.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis60.9%—
LMCA15.5%—
BIG-Bench Hard87.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index135.95—
ForecastBench59.1—
HellaSwag88.9%—
LiveBench66.9%—
PIQA84.7%—
WinoGrande85.2%—

Math Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 30.4 (#208), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 36.6 (#105)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Math13731443
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202537.8%—
Omni-MATH40.3%—
LiveBench Math73.5%—
MATH Level 575.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1.7%—

Knowledge Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#147), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 39.5 (#121)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Expert13521438
GPQA Diamond67.6%—
MMLU-Pro72.3%—
Confabulations26.1%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate6.1%—
GPQA (HELM)53.8%—
ARC (AI2) Challenge95.3%—
MMLU87.2%—
TriviaQA82.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

DeepSeek-V3: —, Kimi K2.5 Instant: 39.5 (#47)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Vision—1254

Multilingual Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 48.8 (#138), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 52.2 (#89)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Non-English13581406
LMArena Chinese13901450
LMArena French13861403
LMArena German13741413
LMArena Korean13211378
LMArena Russian13721404
LMArena Spanish13581448
LMArena Japanese1333—

Instruction Following Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 73.0 (#125), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 75.5 (#61)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Instruction Following13451430
LiveBench Instruction Following81.5%—
IFEval83.2%—

Long Context Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#248), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 43.8 (#82)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Longer Query13531435
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference Kimi K2.5 Instant leads

DeepSeek-V3: 57.6 (#124), Kimi K2.5 Instant: 60.8 (#91)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-V3Kimi K2.5 Instant
LMArena Text13751420
LMArena Creative Writing13641379
LMArena Multi-Turn13891427
Short-Story Creative Writing77%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1472—
WildBench83%—
LiveBench Language49.1%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Kimi K2.5 Instant?

Kimi K2.5 Instant is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 39.2 on the Noometry Index.

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

They score almost the same on coding (41.9 vs 42.3); test both on your own repository before choosing.

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

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2.5 Instant has 18.

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