Model comparison

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) vs Llama 3.1-8B

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) Moonshot AI

41.2

Rank #140 Confirmed

Llama 3.1-8B Meta

23.0

Rank #352 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher in 9 categories and Llama 3.1-8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads 62.3 to 29.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Omni-MATH: 65.4% for Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and 13.7% for Llama 3.1-8B.
  • Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.57 / $2.30 for Kimi K2 (Jul 2025).
  • Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.

Side by side

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and Llama 3.1-8B specifications
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
ProviderMoonshot AIMeta
Noometry Index41.223.0
Released2025-07-122024-07-23
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K128K
Max output262K4K
Input $ / M tokens$0.57$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$2.30$0.08
Results tracked4243

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Category by category

Coding Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.4 (#102), Llama 3.1-8B: 20.2 (#340)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
WeirdML42.8%1.7%
LMArena Coding13991195
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)63.4%—
Aider Polyglot59.1%—
SciCode—13.2%
GSO4.9%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—32.8%
BigCodeBench Complete—40.5%
ALE-Bench597.5—
HumanEval+—62.8%
MBPP+—55.6%

Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.4 (#64), Llama 3.1-8B: 22.5 (#131)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard59.1%25.8%
Terminal-Bench35.7%—
BALROG—15.1%
METR Time Horizons59.2%—

Reasoning Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 23.3 (#179), Llama 3.1-8B: 14.9 (#321)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Hard Prompts13841175
Epoch Capabilities Index146.01116.57
SimpleBench26.3%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark64.4%—
CritPt—0%
Chess Puzzles—0%
DTBench—50.9%
LMCA—5.4%
ForecastBench60.2—
PIQA—81.2%

Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.7 (#83), Llama 3.1-8B: 10.2 (#317)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
Omni-MATH65.4%13.7%
LMArena Math13971179
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—1.7%
MATH Level 5—22.9%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)21.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—
GSM8K—82.4%

Knowledge Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 37.3 (#157), Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#307)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
MMLU-Pro81.9%40.6%
GPQA (HELM)65.3%24.7%
LMArena Expert13651144
GPQA Diamond—27%
Confabulations20.4%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate17.9%—
BoolQ—82.8%
MMLU—56.1%

Multilingual Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.6 (#130), Llama 3.1-8B: 34.0 (#249)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Non-English13721148
LMArena Chinese14151151
LMArena French13791177
LMArena German13871144
LMArena Japanese13491061
LMArena Korean13251053
LMArena Russian13851158
LMArena Spanish13861169

Instruction Following Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.1 (#156), Llama 3.1-8B: 58.9 (#258)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
IFEval85%74.3%
LMArena Instruction Following13481159

Long Context Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#145), Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#238)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Longer Query13531182
Fiction.LiveBench66.7%—
CL-bench17.6%—

Writing & Preference Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.3 (#78), Llama 3.1-8B: 29.7 (#290)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)Llama 3.1-8B
LMArena Text13801187
LMArena Creative Writing13501154
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1666713
WildBench86.2%68.7%
LMArena Multi-Turn13711172
Short-Story Creative Writing85.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better than Llama 3.1-8B?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 23.0 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) or Llama 3.1-8B?

Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) lists at $0.57 and $2.30.

Is Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) or Llama 3.1-8B better for coding?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 20.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) does, with 262K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and Llama 3.1-8B share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-8B has 43.

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