Model comparison
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) vs Mistral Small 3
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 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 . 19 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads 62.3 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 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 33K.
Side by side
| Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 41.2 | 31.2 |
| Released | 2025-07-12 | 2025-01-30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 33K |
| Max output | 262K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.57 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.30 | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 42 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.4 (#102), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1399 | 1246 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 63.4% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | 59.1% | — |
| GSO | 4.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 42.8% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
| ALE-Bench | 597.5 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 32.4 (#64), Mistral Small 3: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | 35.7% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 59.1% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 59.2% | — |
Reasoning Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 23.3 (#179), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1384 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.01 | 127.07 |
| SimpleBench | 26.3% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 64.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| ForecastBench | 60.2 | — |
Math Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 42.7 (#83), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1397 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
| Omni-MATH | 65.4% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 21.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 0% | — |
Knowledge Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 37.3 (#157), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Confabulations | 20.4% | 25.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1365 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | 81.9% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.9% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 65.3% | — |
Multilingual Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 49.6 (#130), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1372 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1415 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1379 | 1203 |
| LMArena German | 1387 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1349 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1325 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1385 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1386 | — |
Instruction Following Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 71.1 (#156), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1348 | 1214 |
| IFEval | 85% | — |
Long Context Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 41.2 (#145), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1353 | 1246 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |
| CL-bench | 17.6% | — |
Writing & Preference Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) leads
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025): 62.3 (#78), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
| Benchmark | Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1380 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1350 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1666 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1371 | 1217 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 85.6% | — |
| WildBench | 86.2% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) better than Mistral Small 3?
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 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 Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 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 Mistral Small 3 better for coding?
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) and Mistral Small 3 share?
19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2 (Jul 2025) has 42 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.