The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Kimi K3 vs Seed 2.1 Turbo

Kimi K3 leads the LLM Stats Score 53.3 to 43.2.

Moonshot AI · ByteDance · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Kimi K3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 53.3 to 43.2, ranking #9 overall.

In the 16 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Kimi K3 wins 14; 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 Kimi K3

  • overall performance matters — it scores 53.3 and ranks #9 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 14 of 16 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2026
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Seed 2.1 Turbo

  • you are already invested in the ByteDance ecosystem

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Kimi K3
Moonshot AI
Seed 2.1 Turbo
ByteDance
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
53.3
#9
43.2
#41
Reasoning
52.1
#8
44.6
#33
Coding
43.5
#5
30.9
#47
Agents
39.6
#8
29.1
#37
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
14 of 16
2 of 16
Input price
$2.85 / M
— / M
Output price
$14.25 / M
— / M
Context window
1,048,576
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

4 shared
Index
Kimi K3
Seed 2.1 Turbo
Math
40.8#10
39.8#17
Vision
36.8#6
30.4#28
Tool use
34.3#3
21.7#50
Multimodal
38.4#3
33.5#15
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

31 reported for Kimi K3 · 90 for Seed 2.1 Turbo

16 shared

Kimi K3 outperforms in 14 benchmarks (APEX-Agents, BabyVision, BrowseComp, CharXiv-R, DeepSWE, Humanity's Last Exam, MathVision, MCP Atlas, PostTrainBench, Program Bench, Terminal-Bench 2.1, Toolathlon, WorldVQA, ZEROBench), while Seed 2.1 Turbo is better at 2 benchmarks (MMMU-Pro, OfficeQA Pro).

Kimi K3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Sep 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Kimi K3 specifies input context (1,048,576 tokens). Only Kimi K3 specifies output context (1,048,576 tokens).

Moonshot AI
Kimi K3
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output1,048,576 tokens
ByteDance
Seed 2.1 Turbo
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Thu Sep 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Kimi K3 and Seed 2.1 Turbo support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Kimi K3

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Kimi K3 is licensed under Kimi K3 License, while Seed 2.1 Turbo uses a proprietary license.

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

Kimi K3

Kimi K3 License

Open weights

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Kimi K3 was released on 2026-07-16, while Seed 2.1 Turbo was released on 2026-06-24.

Kimi K3 is 1 month newer than Seed 2.1 Turbo.

Kimi K3

Jul 16, 2026

1 months ago

3w newer
Seed 2.1 Turbo

Jun 24, 2026

2 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

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Kimi K3 and Seed 2.1 Turbo side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Kimi K3
✓ Preferred
Seed 2.1 Turbo
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Kimi K3 vs Seed 2.1 Turbo.

Which is better, Kimi K3 or Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Kimi K3 leads the LLM Stats Score 53.3 to 43.2. Kimi K3 is made by Moonshot AI and Seed 2.1 Turbo is made by ByteDance. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Kimi K3 compare to Seed 2.1 Turbo in benchmarks?

Kimi K3 scores MathVision: 97.8%, DeepSearchQA: 95.0%, GPQA: 93.5%, CharXiv-R: 91.3%, BrowseComp: 91.2%. Seed 2.1 Turbo scores CharXiv-D: 94.6%, MathVision: 92.7%, MathVista: 90.5%, MathVerse: 89.2%, Video-MME: 89.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Kimi K3 and Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Kimi K3 supports 1.0M tokens and Seed 2.1 Turbo 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 K3 and Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (53.3 vs 43.2), licensing (Kimi K3 License vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Kimi K3 and Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Kimi K3 is developed by Moonshot AI and Seed 2.1 Turbo is developed by ByteDance.

Related comparisons