Model comparison

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) vs MiniMax-M3

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 41.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) Moonshot AI

41.2

Rank #140 Confirmed

MiniMax-M3 MiniMax

43.8

Rank #85 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher in 4 categories and MiniMax-M3 in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where MiniMax-M3 leads 58.4 to 37.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is SimpleBench: 26.3% for Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and 45.8% for MiniMax-M3.
  • MiniMax-M3 is cheaper at $0.30 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.57 / $2.30 for Kimi K2 (Jul 2025).
  • MiniMax-M3 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and MiniMax-M3 specifications
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
ProviderMoonshot AIMiniMax
Noometry Index41.243.8
Released2025-07-122026-06-01
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K1M
Max output262K512K
Input $ / M tokens$0.57$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$2.30$1.20
Results tracked4241

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.4 (#102), MiniMax-M3: 41.8 (#118)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Coding13991469
ALE-Bench597.5640.02
FrontierCode—14.7%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)63.4%—
Aider Polyglot59.1%—
LMArena WebDev—1482
SciCode—47.1%
GSO4.9%—
WeirdML42.8%—

Agentic & Tool Use Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.4 (#64), MiniMax-M3: 22.6 (#130)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
Terminal-Bench35.7%—
APEX-Agents—37.7%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard59.1%—
OSWorld 2.0—4.6%
GBAEval—0.9%
METR Time Horizons59.2%—
Vending-Bench 2—2,158

Reasoning MiniMax-M3 leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 23.3 (#179), MiniMax-M3: 30.1 (#87)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
SimpleBench26.3%45.8%
LMArena Hard Prompts13841447
Epoch Capabilities Index146.01146.95
ForecastBench60.261.4
Kagi LLM Benchmark64.4%—
NYT Connections (extended)—65.1%
CritPt—3.7%
Chess Puzzles—14%
Mystery Game Puzzles—8%
DTBench—78.9%
LMCA—33.7%
Surface Evolver Bench—55%

Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.7 (#83), MiniMax-M3: 40.0 (#95)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Math13971429
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—71.1%
ProofBench—18%
Omni-MATH65.4%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)21.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—

Knowledge MiniMax-M3 leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 37.3 (#157), MiniMax-M3: 58.4 (#35)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Expert13651461
GPQA Diamond—90.9%
MMLU-Pro81.9%—
Confabulations20.4%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate17.9%—
GPQA (HELM)65.3%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): —, MiniMax-M3: 40.2 (#51)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Vision—1253
LMArena Document—1435

Multilingual MiniMax-M3 leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.6 (#130), MiniMax-M3: 53.0 (#75)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Non-English13721420
LMArena Chinese14151463
LMArena French13791447
LMArena German13871426
LMArena Japanese13491381
LMArena Korean13251372
LMArena Russian13851428
LMArena Spanish13861432

Instruction Following MiniMax-M3 leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.1 (#156), MiniMax-M3: 75.5 (#62)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Instruction Following13481433
IFEval85%—

Long Context MiniMax-M3 leads

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#145), MiniMax-M3: 44.2 (#72)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Longer Query13531445
Fiction.LiveBench66.7%—
CL-bench17.6%—

Writing & Preference Too close to call

Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.3 (#78), MiniMax-M3: 62.1 (#83)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkKimi K2 (Jul 2025)MiniMax-M3
LMArena Text13801433
LMArena Creative Writing13501404
LMArena Multi-Turn13711442
Short-Story Creative Writing85.6%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1666—
WildBench86.2%—
EQ-Bench 4—1150

Frequently asked questions

Is Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better than MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 41.2 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) or MiniMax-M3?

MiniMax-M3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) lists at $0.57 and $2.30.

Is Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) or MiniMax-M3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (42.4 vs 41.8); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

MiniMax-M3 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and MiniMax-M3 share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42 scored results on Noometry and MiniMax-M3 has 41.

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