Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Kimi K2-Thinking-0905
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 35.9. Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 is 4.7x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Moonshot AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 35.9, ranking #3 overall.
In the 2 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Claude Sonnet 5.5 wins 2; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 is roughly 4.7x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 Sonnet 5.5
- overall performance matters — it scores 58.0 and ranks #3 on LLM Stats
- your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 2 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 Sep 2026
Choose Kimi K2-Thinking-0905
- cost matters — it's about 4.7x cheaper per token
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 21 for Kimi K2-Thinking-0905
Claude Sonnet 5.5 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (HealthBench, SWE-bench Multilingual), while Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 is better at 0 benchmarks.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 4.3x more expensive than Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 ($0.47/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ($10.00/1M tokens) is 5.0x more expensive than Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 ($2.00/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude Sonnet 5.5 is more expensive than Kimi K2-Thinking-0905.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to Kimi K2-Thinking-0905's 262,144 tokens. Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 5.5 is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 does not.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Kimi K2-Thinking-0905
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 uses MIT.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
MIT
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 was released on 2025-09-05.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 13 months newer than Kimi K2-Thinking-0905.
Sep 28, 2026
1 days ago
1.1yr newerSep 5, 2025
1.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while Kimi K2-Thinking-0905's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Claude Sonnet 5.5's training data extends to 2026-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Kimi K2-Thinking-0905's cutoff date.
Jun 2026
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Provider Availability
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 is available from DeepInfra, Novita, Fireworks.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Kimi K2-Thinking-0905
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Kimi K2-Thinking-0905 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Kimi K2-Thinking-0905.