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Kimi K2.8 Preview vs LongCat-Flash-Lite

Comparing Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Moonshot AI · Meituan · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite 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 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

Choose LongCat-Flash-Lite

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Kimi K2.8 Preview
Moonshot AI
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Meituan
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.40 / M
Context window
1,048,576
256,000

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Kimi K2.8 Preview · 13 for LongCat-Flash-Lite

No common benchmarks found

Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Litedon'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 LongCat-Flash-Lite's 256,000 tokens. Only LongCat-Flash-Lite specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output- tokens
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Input256,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mon Sep 21 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Lite does not.

Kimi K2.8 Preview can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Text
Images
Audio
Video

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Kimi K2.8 Preview is licensed under a proprietary license, while LongCat-Flash-Lite uses MIT.

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

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Proprietary

Closed source

LongCat-Flash-Lite

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Kimi K2.8 Preview was released on 2026-09-11, while LongCat-Flash-Lite was released on 2026-02-05.

Kimi K2.8 Preview is 7 months newer than LongCat-Flash-Lite.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Sep 11, 2026

1 weeks ago

7mo newer
LongCat-Flash-Lite

Feb 5, 2026

7 months 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

Kimi K2.8 Preview is available from Moonshot AI. LongCat-Flash-Lite is available from Meituan.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

moonshot logo
Unknown Organization

LongCat-Flash-Lite

meituan logo
Meituan
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.40/1M
* 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 Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Kimi K2.8 Preview
✓ Preferred
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Kimi K2.8 Preview vs LongCat-Flash-Lite.

Which is better, Kimi K2.8 Preview or LongCat-Flash-Lite?

Kimi K2.8 Preview (Moonshot AI) and LongCat-Flash-Lite (Meituan) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Kimi K2.8 Preview compare to LongCat-Flash-Lite in benchmarks?

LongCat-Flash-Lite scores MATH-500: 96.8%, MMLU: 85.5%, CMMLU: 82.5%, MMLU-Pro: 78.3%, Tau2 Retail: 73.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite?

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports 1.0M tokens and LongCat-Flash-Lite supports 256K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite?

Key differences include context window (1.0M vs 256K), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Kimi K2.8 Preview and LongCat-Flash-Lite?

Kimi K2.8 Preview is developed by Moonshot AI and LongCat-Flash-Lite is developed by Meituan.

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