Model comparison

Kimi K2.6 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 40.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2.6 Moonshot AI

47.7

Rank #60 Confirmed

Mistral Medium 3.5 Mistral AI

40.2

Rank #152 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Kimi K2.6 leads 40.5 to 17.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 87.2% for Kimi K2.6 and 12.9% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
  • Kimi K2.6 is cheaper at $0.95 / $4 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.

Side by side

Kimi K2.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 specifications
Kimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
ProviderMoonshot AIMistral AI
Noometry Index47.740.2
Released2026-04-20—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K262K
Max output262K210K
Input $ / M tokens$0.95$1.50
Output $ / M tokens$4$7.50
Results tracked5122

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 50.7 (#43), Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena WebDev15091264
LMArena Coding14881461
SWE-bench Verified76.7%—
SciCode53.5%—
WeirdML55.9%—
ALE-Bench1,093—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 21.9 (#137), Mistral Medium 3.5: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
OSWorld 2.04.6%—
ExploitBench18.4%—
GBAEval0.9%—
GDP.pdf12%—
Vending-Bench 26,205—

Reasoning Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 40.5 (#55), Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
NYT Connections (extended)87.2%12.9%
LMArena Hard Prompts14701436
Epoch Capabilities Index151.05141.35
Kagi LLM Benchmark—41.4%
CritPt8%—
Chess Puzzles26%—
EBR-Bench2.4%—
Mystery Game Puzzles18%—
DTBench90.9%—
LMCA37.3%—

Math Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 57.0 (#41), Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)

Knowledge Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 54.0 (#54), Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Expert14911432
GPQA Diamond90.8%—
SimpleQA Verified34.9%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.8%—

Multimodal Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Kimi K2.6: 31.6 (#103), Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Vision12831223
Blueprint-Bench 23.9%—
Furniture Assembly21.7%—
LMArena Document1451—

Multilingual Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 54.9 (#37), Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Non-English14461404
LMArena Chinese15211442
LMArena French14711448
LMArena German14501451
LMArena Korean14271385
LMArena Russian14461395
LMArena Spanish14641409
LMArena Japanese1443—

Instruction Following Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 76.3 (#43), Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Instruction Following14511415

Long Context Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#52), Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Longer Query14681415

Writing & Preference Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 68.5 (#26), Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Medium 3.5
LMArena Text14551421
LMArena Creative Writing14341374
EQ-Bench 41202993
LMArena Multi-Turn14531423
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1725—

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2.6 better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 40.2 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Kimi K2.6 is cheaper. It lists at $0.95 per million input tokens and $4 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is Kimi K2.6 or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

Kimi K2.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.7 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.

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