K2 Horizon 32B vs Mercury 3
K2 Horizon 32B and Mercury 3 are closely matched at 30.2 and 35.9 on the LLM Stats Score.
Institute of Foundation Models · Inception · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
K2 Horizon 32B and Mercury 3 are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 30.2 and 35.9.
In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose K2 Horizon 32B
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Choose Mercury 3
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 4 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
9 reported for K2 Horizon 32B · 12 for Mercury 3
K2 Horizon 32B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Mercury 3 is better at 4 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GPQA, OmniScience, Tau3 Banking).
Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Mercury 3 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Mercury 3 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
K2 Horizon 32B is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Mercury 3 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
K2 Horizon 32B was released on 2026-09-03, while Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19.
Mercury 3 is 2 months newer than K2 Horizon 32B.
Sep 3, 2026
1 months ago
Oct 19, 2026
1 weeks ago
1mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against K2 Horizon 32B and Mercury 3 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about K2 Horizon 32B vs Mercury 3.