Model comparison
Kimi K2.5 vs Mistral Small 3
Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.8 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Kimi K2.5 leads 50.3 to 15.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 92.2% for Kimi K2.5 and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $2.25 for Kimi K2.5.
- Kimi K2.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 47.8 | 30.9 |
| Released | 2026-01-27 | 2025-01-30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 33K |
| Max output | 262K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.45 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.25 | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 48.7 (#48), Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1474 | 1246 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.8% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 70.8% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1436 | — |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.3% | — |
| SciCode | 49% | — |
| WeirdML | 45.6% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 821.65 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Kimi K2.5: 34.0 (#44), Mistral Small 3: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 43.2% | — |
| OSWorld | 63.3% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,198 | — |
Reasoning Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 31.2 (#74), Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 12% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1454 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.05 | 127.06 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 11.8% | — |
| SimpleBench | 46.8% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 78.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 69.9% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 65.3% | — |
| CritPt | 3.1% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3.4% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 69.4% | — |
Math Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 50.3 (#46), Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 92.2% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1470 | 1240 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 62.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 27.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 4.2% | — |
Knowledge Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 53.6 (#52), Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 87.6% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1466 | 1202 |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 24.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.3% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 14.2% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Kimi K2.5: 40.4 (#37), Mistral Small 3: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1269 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1430 | — |
Multilingual Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 54.1 (#50), Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1433 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1454 | 1202 |
| LMArena German | 1441 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1422 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1412 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1436 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1450 | — |
Instruction Following Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 75.5 (#60), Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1431 | 1214 |
Long Context Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 52.1 (#7), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1445 | 1246 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 86.1% | — |
| CL-bench | 19.3% | — |
| CL-bench Life | 13.2% | — |
Writing & Preference Kimi K2.5 leads
Kimi K2.5: 65.3 (#51), Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.5 | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1445 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1423 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1579 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1444 | 1217 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Kimi K2.5 better than Mistral Small 3?
Kimi K2.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.8 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.5 or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.5 lists at $0.45 and $2.25.
Is Kimi K2.5 or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?
Kimi K2.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K2.5 does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.5 and Mistral Small 3 share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.5 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.