Hermes 3 405B vs Kimi K2.8 Preview
Comparing Hermes 3 405B and Kimi K2.8 Preview across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
Nous Research · Moonshot AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Hermes 3 405B and Kimi K2.8 Preview trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.
Kimi K2.8 Preview also accepts a larger context window (1,048,576 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 Hermes 3 405B
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Choose Kimi K2.8 Preview
- you process long inputs — it offers a 1,048,576 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
13 reported for Hermes 3 405B · 0 for Kimi K2.8 Preview
Hermes 3 405B and Kimi K2.8 Previewdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Kimi K2.8 Preview accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Hermes 3 405B's 131,072 tokens. Only Hermes 3 405B specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Kimi K2.8 Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas Hermes 3 405B does not.
Kimi K2.8 Preview can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Hermes 3 405B
Kimi K2.8 Preview
License
Usage and distribution terms
Hermes 3 405B is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Kimi K2.8 Preview uses a proprietary license.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Hermes 3 405B was released on 2024-10-09, while Kimi K2.8 Preview was released on 2026-09-11.
Kimi K2.8 Preview is 23 months newer than Hermes 3 405B.
Oct 9, 2024
1.9 years ago
Sep 11, 2026
3 days ago
1.9yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Hermes 3 405B is available from DeepInfra. Kimi K2.8 Preview is available from Moonshot AI.
Hermes 3 405B
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Hermes 3 405B and Kimi K2.8 Preview side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Hermes 3 405B vs Kimi K2.8 Preview.