The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Kimi K2.8 Preview vs MiniMax M1 40K

Comparing Kimi K2.8 Preview and MiniMax M1 40K across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Moonshot AI · MiniMax · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Kimi K2.8 Preview and MiniMax M1 40K trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Kimi K2.8 Preview

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

Choose MiniMax M1 40K

  • 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
MiniMax M1 40K
MiniMax
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
1,048,576
—

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Kimi K2.8 Preview · 16 for MiniMax M1 40K

No common benchmarks found

Kimi K2.8 Preview and MiniMax M1 40Kdon'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

Only Kimi K2.8 Preview specifies input context (1,048,576 tokens).

Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output- tokens
MiniMax
MiniMax M1 40K
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas MiniMax M1 40K 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

MiniMax M1 40K

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Kimi K2.8 Preview is licensed under a proprietary license, while MiniMax M1 40K 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

MiniMax M1 40K

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Kimi K2.8 Preview was released on 2026-09-11, while MiniMax M1 40K was released on 2025-06-16.

Kimi K2.8 Preview is 15 months newer than MiniMax M1 40K.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Sep 11, 2026

1 weeks ago

1.2yr newer
MiniMax M1 40K

Jun 16, 2025

1.3 years 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

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Kimi K2.8 Preview and MiniMax M1 40K side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Kimi K2.8 Preview
✓ Preferred
MiniMax M1 40K
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Kimi K2.8 Preview vs MiniMax M1 40K.

Which is better, Kimi K2.8 Preview or MiniMax M1 40K?

Kimi K2.8 Preview (Moonshot AI) and MiniMax M1 40K (MiniMax) 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 MiniMax M1 40K in benchmarks?

MiniMax M1 40K scores MATH-500: 96.0%, AIME 2024: 83.3%, MMLU-Pro: 80.6%, ZebraLogic: 80.1%, OpenAI-MRCR: 2 needle 128k: 76.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Kimi K2.8 Preview and MiniMax M1 40K?

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports 1.0M tokens and MiniMax M1 40K supports an unknown number of 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 MiniMax M1 40K?

Key differences include 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 MiniMax M1 40K?

Kimi K2.8 Preview is developed by Moonshot AI and MiniMax M1 40K is developed by MiniMax.

Related comparisons