Model comparison
Kimi K2.6 vs Ministral 8B
Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Kimi K2.6 leads 53.9 to 12.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 90.8% for Kimi K2.6 and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.95 / $4 for Kimi K2.6.
- Kimi K2.6 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 47.5 | 27.8 |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 128K |
| Max output | 262K | 128K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.95 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4 | $0.10 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 50.5 (#41), Ministral 8B: 34.4 (#226)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1488 | 1202 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1509 | — |
| SciCode | 53.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 55.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,093 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 21.8 (#128), Ministral 8B: 16.2 (#140)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| ExploitBench | 18.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 12% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,205 | — |
Reasoning Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 39.6 (#51), Ministral 8B: 17.7 (#279)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1470 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 90.9% | 45.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.2% | — |
| CritPt | 8% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 26% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 2.4% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 18% | — |
| LMCA | 37.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.03 | — |
Math Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 56.8 (#34), Ministral 8B: 23.7 (#262)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1475 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 57.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 25.6% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 72.9% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 96.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 16% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 39% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 14.6% | — |
Knowledge Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 53.9 (#48), Ministral 8B: 12.5 (#292)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.8% | 27.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.8% | 7.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1491 | 1170 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.9% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Kimi K2.6: 31.8 (#95), Ministral 8B: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1282 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 3.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 21.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1451 | — |
Multilingual Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 55.1 (#35), Ministral 8B: 35.3 (#242)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1446 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1521 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1446 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1471 | — |
| LMArena German | 1449 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1442 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1428 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1463 | — |
Instruction Following Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 76.5 (#40), Ministral 8B: 60.7 (#245)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1451 | 1161 |
Long Context Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#50), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#222)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1468 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Kimi K2.6 leads
Kimi K2.6: 68.7 (#25), Ministral 8B: 39.8 (#241)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1455 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1434 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1453 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1725 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1202 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Kimi K2.6 better than Ministral 8B?
Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.6 lists at $0.95 and $4.
Is Kimi K2.6 or Ministral 8B better for coding?
Kimi K2.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K2.6 does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and Ministral 8B share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.