The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Kimi K2 Instruct

Claude Opus 4.6 leads the LLM Stats Score 44.7 to 21.9. Kimi K2 Instruct is 20.0x cheaper per token.

Anthropic · Moonshot AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Opus 4.6 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 44.7 to 21.9, ranking #37 overall.

In the 7 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude Opus 4.6 wins 6; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Kimi K2 Instruct is roughly 20.0x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Claude Opus 4.6 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Opus 4.6

  • overall performance matters — it scores 44.7 and ranks #37 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 6 of 7 exact shared results
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Feb 2026

Choose Kimi K2 Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 20.0x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Opus 4.6
Anthropic
Kimi K2 Instruct
Moonshot AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
44.7
#37
21.9
#188
Reasoning
45.3
#32
22.0
#178
Coding
32.3
#42
12.4
#153
Agents
27.6
#47
-1.0
#181
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
6 of 7
1 of 7
Input price
$5.00 / M
$0.50 / M
Output price
$25.00 / M
$0.50 / M
Context window
1,000,000
200,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Claude Opus 4.6
Kimi K2 Instruct
Math
40.1#16
22.2#142
Tool use
23.6#36
6.4#150
Writing
32.0#1
11.7#65
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

27 reported for Claude Opus 4.6 · 38 for Kimi K2 Instruct

7 shared

Claude Opus 4.6 outperforms in 6 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA, Humanity's Last Exam, SWE-bench Multilingual, Tau2 Retail, Tau2 Telecom), while Kimi K2 Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (LiveBench).

Claude Opus 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Wed Sep 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Kimi K2 Instruct costs less

For input processing, Claude Opus 4.6 ($5.00/1M tokens) is 10.0x more expensive than Kimi K2 Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude Opus 4.6 ($25.00/1M tokens) is 50.0x more expensive than Kimi K2 Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude Opus 4.6 is more expensive than Kimi K2 Instruct.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Wed Sep 23 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.6
Input tokens$5.00
Output tokens$25.00
Best providerAnthropic
Moonshot AI
Kimi K2 Instruct
Input tokens$0.50
Output tokens$0.50
Best providerFireworks
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Opus 4.6 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Kimi K2 Instruct's 200,000 tokens. Kimi K2 Instruct can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Claude Opus 4.6 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Opus 4.6
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Moonshot AI
Kimi K2 Instruct
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
Wed Sep 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Claude Opus 4.6 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Kimi K2 Instruct does not.

Claude Opus 4.6 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude Opus 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Kimi K2 Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Opus 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Kimi K2 Instruct uses MIT.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude Opus 4.6

Proprietary

Closed source

Kimi K2 Instruct

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Opus 4.6 was released on 2026-02-05, while Kimi K2 Instruct was released on 2025-07-11.

Claude Opus 4.6 is 7 months newer than Kimi K2 Instruct.

Claude Opus 4.6

Feb 5, 2026

7 months ago

6mo newer
Kimi K2 Instruct

Jul 11, 2025

1.2 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Claude Opus 4.6 is available from Anthropic. Kimi K2 Instruct is available from Fireworks, Novita.

Claude Opus 4.6

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $5.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $25.00/1M

Kimi K2 Instruct

fireworks logo
Fireworks
Input Price:Input: $0.50/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M
novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.57/1MOutput Price:Output: $2.30/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Opus 4.6 and Kimi K2 Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Opus 4.6
✓ Preferred
Kimi K2 Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Opus 4.6 vs Kimi K2 Instruct.

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Kimi K2 Instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 leads the LLM Stats Score 44.7 to 21.9. Claude Opus 4.6 is made by Anthropic and Kimi K2 Instruct is made by Moonshot AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Opus 4.6 compare to Kimi K2 Instruct in benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4.6 scores Vending-Bench 2: 100.0%, AIME 2025: 99.8%, Tau2 Telecom: 99.3%, Graphwalks parents >128k: 95.4%, Tau2 Retail: 91.9%. Kimi K2 Instruct scores MATH-500: 97.4%, GSM8k: 97.3%, CBNSL: 95.6%, HumanEval: 93.3%, MMLU-Redux: 92.7%.

Is Claude Opus 4.6 cheaper than Kimi K2 Instruct?

Kimi K2 Instruct is 10.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5.00/M input and $25.00/M output via anthropic. Kimi K2 Instruct costs $0.50/M input and $0.50/M output via fireworks.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Opus 4.6 and Kimi K2 Instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 supports 1.0M tokens and Kimi K2 Instruct supports 200K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Opus 4.6 and Kimi K2 Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (44.7 vs 21.9), context window (1.0M vs 200K), input pricing ($5.00 vs $0.50/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Opus 4.6 and Kimi K2 Instruct?

Claude Opus 4.6 is developed by Anthropic and Kimi K2 Instruct is developed by Moonshot AI.

Related comparisons