# Grok-3 mini vs Kimi K2.5 Instant

> Kimi K2.5 Instant is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 41.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-3-mini-vs-kimi-k2-5-instant
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-3 mini scores higher in 3 categories and Kimi K2.5 Instant in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Kimi K2.5 Instant leads 28.5 to 13.8.
- Kimi K2.5 Instant has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Moonshot AI |
| Noometry Index | 41.0 | 42.9 |
| Rank | 130 | 92 |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok-3 mini: 40.4 (#126)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 42.3 (#95)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1483 |
| Aider Polyglot | 49.3% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1404 |
| WeirdML | 42.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok-3 mini: 13.8 (#323)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 28.5 (#88)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1374 | 1443 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 61.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 16.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.35 | — |

## Math

- Grok-3 mini: 40.3 (#78)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 36.6 (#105)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1386 | 1443 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 77.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 31.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 90.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 5.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok-3 mini: 46.3 (#75)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 39.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1395 | 1438 |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.9% | — |
| Confabulations | 10.8% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 67.5% | — |

## Multimodal

- Grok-3 mini: —
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 39.5 (#47)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1254 |

## Multilingual

- Grok-3 mini: 48.3 (#141)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 52.2 (#89)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1352 | 1406 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1387 | 1450 |
| LMArena French | 1357 | 1403 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | 1413 |
| LMArena Korean | 1336 | 1378 |
| LMArena Russian | 1352 | 1404 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1379 | 1448 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1343 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Grok-3 mini: 78.7 (#8)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 75.5 (#61)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1356 | 1430 |
| IFEval | 95.1% | — |

## Long Context

- Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#142)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 43.8 (#82)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1372 | 1435 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok-3 mini: 52.7 (#163)
- Kimi K2.5 Instant: 60.8 (#91)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Kimi K2.5 Instant |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1420 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1342 | 1379 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1355 | 1427 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 73.5% | — |
| WildBench | 65.1% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Grok-3 mini better than Kimi K2.5 Instant?

Kimi K2.5 Instant is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 41.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Grok-3 mini or Kimi K2.5 Instant better for coding?

Kimi K2.5 Instant scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.3 versus 40.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Grok-3 mini and Kimi K2.5 Instant share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-3 mini has 35 scored results on Noometry and Kimi K2.5 Instant has 18.