Model comparison

Kimi K2.6 vs Mistral Small 3.2

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 13× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2.6's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 5 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2.6 Moonshot AI

47.7

Rank #60 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.2 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 4 categories and Mistral Small 3.2 in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Kimi K2.6 leads 57.0 to 26.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 96.1% for Kimi K2.6 and 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2.
  • Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.95 / $4 for Kimi K2.6.
  • Kimi K2.6 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

Side by side

Kimi K2.6 and Mistral Small 3.2 specifications
Kimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
ProviderMoonshot AIMistral AI
Noometry Index47.731.2
Released2026-04-202025-06-20
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K256K
Max output262K16K
Input $ / M tokens$0.95$0.0938
Output $ / M tokens$4$0.25
Results tracked516

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 50.7 (#43), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
SWE-bench Verified76.7%—
LMArena WebDev1509—
SciCode53.5%—
WeirdML55.9%—
LMArena Coding1488—
ALE-Bench1,093—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 21.9 (#137), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
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 Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
Chess Puzzles26%1%
Epoch Capabilities Index151.05131.74
Kagi LLM Benchmark—40.4%
NYT Connections (extended)87.2%—
CritPt8%—
EBR-Bench2.4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1470—
Mystery Game Puzzles18%—
DTBench90.9%—
LMCA37.3%—

Math Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 57.0 (#41), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260)

Knowledge Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 54.0 (#54), Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
GPQA Diamond90.8%49.1%
SimpleQA Verified34.9%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.8%—
LMArena Expert1491—

Multimodal Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 31.6 (#103), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Vision1283—
Blueprint-Bench 23.9%—
Furniture Assembly21.7%—
LMArena Document1451—

Multilingual Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 54.9 (#37), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Non-English1446—
LMArena Chinese1521—
LMArena French1471—
LMArena German1450—
LMArena Japanese1443—
LMArena Korean1427—
LMArena Russian1446—
LMArena Spanish1464—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 76.3 (#43), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Instruction Following1451—

Long Context Not comparable

Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#52), Mistral Small 3.2: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
LMArena Longer Query1468—

Writing & Preference Kimi K2.6 leads

Kimi K2.6: 68.5 (#26), Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Mistral Small 3.2
EQ-Bench Creative Writing17251255
LMArena Text1455—
LMArena Creative Writing1434—
EQ-Bench 41202—
LMArena Multi-Turn1453—

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2.6 better than Mistral Small 3.2?

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 13× 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 Mistral Small 3.2?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Kimi K2.6 lists at $0.95 and $4.

Which has the bigger context window?

Kimi K2.6 does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and Mistral Small 3.2 share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.2 has 6.

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