Model comparison
Gemma 3 12B vs Kimi K2.5
Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 12× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 0 categories and Kimi K2.5 in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Kimi K2.5 leads 51.8 to 22.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 92.2% for Kimi K2.5.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $2.25 for Kimi K2.5.
- Kimi K2.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | |
| Noometry Index | 32.1 | 48.1 |
| Released | 2025-03-12 | 2026-01-27 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Max output | 8K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.45 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $2.25 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 51 |
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Category by category
Coding Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Kimi K2.5: 48.8 (#53)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 17.4% | 49% |
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | 1474 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 73.8% |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 70.8% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1437 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | — | 67.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 45.6% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 821.65 |
Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Kimi K2.5: 34.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 43.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |
| OSWorld | — | 63.3% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 1,198 |
Reasoning Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#80)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 3.1% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 12% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | 1453 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.5 | 148.03 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 11.8% |
| SimpleBench | — | 46.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 78.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 69.9% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 65.3% |
| EnigmaEval | — | 3.4% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 69.4% |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |
Math Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Kimi K2.5: 51.8 (#53)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 92.2% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | 1470 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 62.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 27.9% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#56)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 87.6% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | 14.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | 1466 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | — | 24.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 34.3% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 12B: —, Kimi K2.5: 41.1 (#39)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1269 |
| LMArena Document | — | 1430 |
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |
Multilingual Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Kimi K2.5: 53.9 (#53)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | 1433 |
| LMArena German | 1370 | 1441 |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | 1435 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1495 |
| LMArena French | — | 1454 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1421 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1410 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1450 |
Instruction Following Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Kimi K2.5: 75.3 (#64)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | 1431 |
Long Context Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | 1445 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 86.1% |
| CL-bench | — | 19.3% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 13.2% |
Writing & Preference Kimi K2.5 leads
Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Kimi K2.5: 65.1 (#53)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Kimi K2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1334 | 1445 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1423 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | 1579 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | 1444 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 12B better than Kimi K2.5?
Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.1 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 12× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Kimi K2.5?
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.5 lists at $0.45 and $2.25.
Is Gemma 3 12B or Kimi K2.5 better for coding?
Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.8 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K2.5 does, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Kimi K2.5 share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2.5 has 51.