# Kimi K2.6 vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/kimi-k2-6-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K2.6 scores higher in 8 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Kimi K2.6 leads 68.5 to 31.1.

## Snapshot

| | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 47.7 | 29.3 |
| Rank | 60 | 314 |
| Context | 262K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.95 | — |
| Output $/M | $4 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Kimi K2.6: 50.7 (#43)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1488 | 1101 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.7% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1509 | — |
| SciCode | 53.5% | — |
| WeirdML | 55.9% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| ALE-Bench | 1,093 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Kimi K2.6: 21.9 (#137)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | — |
| ExploitBench | 18.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 0.9% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 12% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 6,205 | — |

## Reasoning

- Kimi K2.6: 40.5 (#55)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1470 | 1100 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.2% | — |
| CritPt | 8% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 26% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 2.4% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 18% | — |
| DTBench | 90.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| LMCA | 37.3% | — |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 151.05 | — |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Kimi K2.6: 57.0 (#41)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1475 | 1151 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 57.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 25.6% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 72.9% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 96.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 16% | — |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 39% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 14.6% | — |

## Knowledge

- Kimi K2.6: 54.0 (#54)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1491 | 1067 |
| GPQA Diamond | 90.8% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 34.9% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.8% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multimodal

- Kimi K2.6: 31.6 (#103)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 3.9% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 21.7% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1451 | — |

## Multilingual

- Kimi K2.6: 54.9 (#37)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1446 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1521 | 1061 |
| LMArena French | 1471 | 1135 |
| LMArena German | 1450 | 1080 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1443 | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | 1427 | 894 |
| LMArena Russian | 1446 | 1111 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1464 | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Kimi K2.6: 76.3 (#43)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1451 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |

## Long Context

- Kimi K2.6: 44.9 (#52)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1468 | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Kimi K2.6: 68.5 (#26)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1455 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1434 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1453 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1725 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1202 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Kimi K2.6 better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Kimi K2.6 is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.7 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Kimi K2.6 or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

Kimi K2.6 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.7 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Kimi K2.6 and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K2.6 has 51 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.