Kimi K2 Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
Kimi K2 Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 21.9 to 16.4. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is 1.9x cheaper per token.
Moonshot AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Kimi K2 Instruct leads the overall LLM Stats Score 21.9 to 16.4, ranking #182 overall.
In the 9 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Kimi K2 Instruct wins 8; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is roughly 1.9x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct also accepts a larger context window (262,144 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 Kimi K2 Instruct
- overall performance matters — it scores 21.9 and ranks #182 on LLM Stats
- your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 8 of 9 exact shared results
Choose Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
- cost matters — it's about 1.9x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 262,144 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
38 reported for Kimi K2 Instruct · 50 for Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
Kimi K2 Instruct outperforms in 8 benchmarks (GPQA, IFEval, LiveCodeBench v6, MMLU, MMLU-Pro, MMLU-Redux, SimpleQA, SuperGPQA), while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (AIME 2025).
Kimi K2 Instruct 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, Kimi K2 Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens) is 3.3x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Kimi K2 Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens) is 1.2x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct ($0.60/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Kimi K2 Instruct is more expensive than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Kimi K2 Instruct has 969.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct, making it 3125.8% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to Kimi K2 Instruct's 200,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Kimi K2 Instruct is limited to 200,000 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Kimi K2 Instruct does not.
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Kimi K2 Instruct
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Kimi K2 Instruct is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Kimi K2 Instruct was released on 2025-07-11, while Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is 2 months newer than Kimi K2 Instruct.
Jul 11, 2025
1.2 years ago
Sep 22, 2025
12 months ago
2mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Kimi K2 Instruct is available from Fireworks, Novita. Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Novita.
Kimi K2 Instruct
Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Kimi K2 Instruct and Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Kimi K2 Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 30B A3B Instruct.