Head-to-head comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs. Kimi K2.6

Compare published benchmark results from matching versions and cohorts, API pricing, and technical specifications. Any documented test setup differences remain visible.

shared result series: 25
distinct benchmarks: 25
latest retrieval: 2026-09-29

First modelSecond model

Specifications

General specifications

Release date, availability, context window, architecture, and published parameter counts at a glance. Undisclosed details remain marked as unavailable.

Specifications for Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6
Attribute	Claude Opus 4.8	Kimi K2.6
Provider	Anthropic	Moonshot AI
Released	May 2026	Apr 20, 2026
Availability	Legacy	Active
Model type	Proprietary	Open Weights
Parameters	Not published	1T, 32B active
Architecture	Not published	Mixture of Experts
Context window	1,000,000 tokens	262,144 tokens
Knowledge cutoff	January 2026	Not published
Technical sources	Model, Knowledge cutoff	Model, Context

Pricing

API pricing compared

The table compares official standard API rates per 1M tokens, including published cache pricing. Batch, fast, priority, regional surcharges, tool calls, and cloud platform pricing are excluded.

API pricing for Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6
Price type	Claude Opus 4.8	Kimi K2.6
API input	$5	$0.95
API output	$25	$4
Cache read	$0.5	$0.16
Cache write (5 min.)	$6.25	Not listed
Cache write (1 hr.)	$10	Not listed
Price verified	09/22/2026 Source	09/22/2026 Source

Claude Opus 4.8Kimi K2.6

API inputUSD per 1M tokens, base tier

Claude Opus 4.8$5

Kimi K2.6$0.95

API outputUSD per 1M tokens, base tier

Claude Opus 4.8$25

Kimi K2.6$4

Cache readUSD per 1M tokens, base tier

Claude Opus 4.8$0.5

Kimi K2.6$0.16

Key to the marks:better valuebetter, but not conclusivetie

Pricing by provider

Direct developer pricing and provider endpoint tariffs routed through OpenRouter are listed separately. Prices are in USD per 1M tokens. Context-dependent direct tiers plus regional, Flex, Priority, and other OpenRouter tariffs remain individually identifiable.

No provider tariff for Claude Opus 4.8 is available in the stored OpenRouter snapshot. The official direct price is still shown.

Provider pricing for Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6
Model	Provider	Purchase route and tariff	Input per 1M tokens	Output per 1M tokens	Source
Claude Opus 4.8	Anthropic	Direct from developerStandard API	Lowest listed price: $5	Lowest listed price: $25	Source09/22/2026
Kimi K2.6	Moonshot AI	Direct from developerStandard API	$0.95	$4	Source09/22/2026
	AtlasCloud	Via OpenRouteratlas-cloud/int4	$0.95	$4	Source10/07/2026
	Baidu	Via OpenRouterbaidu/fp4	$0.95	$4	Source10/07/2026
	Chutes	Via OpenRouterchutes/int4	$0.5	$2.85	Source10/07/2026
	Cloudflare	Via OpenRoutercloudflare	$0.95	$4	Source10/07/2026
	CoreWeave	Via OpenRoutercoreweave/fp4	$0.65	$3.41	Source10/07/2026
	Decart	Via OpenRouterdecart/fp4	$0.5865	$2.4696	Source10/07/2026
	DeepInfra	Via OpenRouterdeepinfra/fp4	$0.75	$3.5	Source10/07/2026
	DigitalOcean	Via OpenRouterdigitalocean	$0.57	Lowest listed price: $2.4	Source10/07/2026
	GMICloud	Via OpenRoutergmicloud/fp8	$0.855	$3.6	Source10/07/2026
	Inceptron	Via OpenRouterinceptron/int4	Lowest listed price: $0.465	$2.45	Source10/07/2026
	Moonshot AI	Via OpenRoutermoonshotai/int4	$0.95	$4	Source10/07/2026
	Novita	Via OpenRouternovita	$0.8	$3.4	Source10/07/2026
	Parasail	Via OpenRouterparasail/int4	$0.75	$3.5	Source10/07/2026
	Phala	Via OpenRouterphala	$1.09	$4.6	Source10/07/2026
	SiliconFlow	Via OpenRoutersiliconflow/fp8	$0.77	$3.4	Source10/07/2026
	StreamLake	Via OpenRouterstreamlake/fp8	$0.5985	$2.52	Source10/07/2026
	Venice	Via OpenRoutervenice/int4	$0.75	$3.5	Source10/07/2026

Performance

Shared benchmarks

Only published results with the same benchmark version, task, metric, and comparison cohort are paired. Different reasoning levels, agents, harnesses, or output limits appear directly in the table.

Capability profile from matched benchmarks

Each axis averages directly matched benchmark families. A value of 100 means the stronger value within this pair, not a universal quality score.

Claude Opus 4.8

Kimi K2.6

Coding: 100 / 57.9 (5 benchmark families)

Reasoning: 100 / 96.4 (1 benchmark family)

Knowledge: 100 / 97.8 (1 benchmark family)

Finance: 100 / 88.2 (6 benchmark families)

Legal: 99.5 / 51.2 (3 benchmark families)

Agentic tasks: 100 / 78.1 (1 benchmark family)

Multimodal: 100 / 99.7 (1 benchmark family)

Productivity: 100 / 83.1 (1 benchmark family)

25 matched rows from 24 benchmark families were considered. The radar shows 8 of 11 comparable categories.

Claude Opus 4.8Kimi K2.6

Code MigrationOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.847.25 %

Kimi K2.627.768 %

CorpFin v2Overall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.866.706 %

Kimi K2.666.744 %

EMBOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.869.373 %

Kimi K2.657.855 %

Finance Agent (v2)Overall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.853.918 %

Kimi K2.644.899 %

GPQA DiamondOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.892.424 %

Kimi K2.689.142 %

Harvey's Legal Agent BenchmarkOverall · Task fully resolved. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.89.583 %

Kimi K2.61.667 %

Legal Research BenchOverall · All-pass. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.843.75 %

Kimi K2.615.865 %

LegalBenchOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.883.568 %

Kimi K2.684.738 %

LiveCodeBench v6Overall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.887.819 %

Kimi K2.686.771 %

MedCodeOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.853.217 %

Kimi K2.640.142 %

MedScribeOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.885.755 %

Kimi K2.678.149 %

MMLU-ProOverall. Higher is better. No documented setup difference

Claude Opus 4.889.585 %

Kimi K2.687.572 %

Key to the marks:better valuebetter, but not conclusivetie

Benchmark scores for Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6
Benchmark and task	Claude Opus 4.8	Kimi K2.6	Source
Code MigrationOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner47.25 %	27.768 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
CorpFin v2Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	66.706 %	Winner66.744 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 08/12/2026
EMBOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner69.373 %	57.855 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Finance Agent (v2)Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner53.918 %	44.899 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
GPQA DiamondOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner92.424 %	89.142 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
Harvey's Legal Agent BenchmarkOverall · Task fully resolved Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: task resolution rateScoring: Higher is better	Winner9.583 %	1.667 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Legal Research BenchOverall · All-pass Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: all-pass rateScoring: Higher is better	Winner43.75 %	15.865 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
LegalBenchOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	83.568 %	Winner84.738 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
LiveCodeBench v6Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner87.819 %	86.771 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
MedCodeOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner53.217 %	40.142 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/26/2026
MedScribeOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner85.755 %	78.149 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/26/2026
MMLU-ProOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner89.585 %	87.572 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
MMMU-ProOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner86.59 %	86.301 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
MortgageTaxOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner69.912 %	65.818 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
ProgramBenchOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner1 %	0 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1.1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner68.133 %	56.631 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
SAGEOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner54.788 %	50.224 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/26/2026
SWE-bench VerifiedOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner88.6 %	76.2 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
Tax Agent BenchOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner64.906 %	45.135 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
TaxEval v2Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner75.634 %	74.652 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/01/2026
Terminal-Bench 2.0Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2.0Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner70.037 %	57.303 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 06/04/2026
Terminal-Bench 2.1Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2.1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is better	Winner71.91 %	53.558 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Vals IndexOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 2Metric: weighted index scoreScoring: Higher is better	Winner60.908 %	43.465 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Vals Multimodal IndexOverall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1.2Metric: weighted index scoreScoring: Higher is better	Winner70.889 %	56.434 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 08/11/2026
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Overall Test details No documented difference in the test setupVersion: 1.1Metric: accuracyScoring: Higher is betterSettings: Harness: OpenHands	Winner82.725 %	37.891 %	Vals AI Source details Data as of: 09/27/2026
Key to the marks:better valuebetter, but not conclusivetie

Our model tests

Our tests

Compare how the models respond to the same prompt. Each test shows the latest attempt, with no subsequent fixes to the generated code. Earlier runs remain available in the test details. These results do not contribute to an overall score.

Pelican on a bicycle

A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.

Claude Opus 4.8

Reasoning (requested): high

Current attempt

Run date: 1 Oct 2026
API provider: openrouter
Requested API model: anthropic/claude-opus-4.8
API model reported in response: anthropic/claude-opus-4.8
Reasoning setting: high
Pinned endpoint: Anthropic | anthropic/claude-4.8-opus-20260528
Temperature: Provider default
Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens
Test protocol: community-visual-tests-v1
Technical checks: Passed, not a quality rating
Response time: 18 s

Visually reviewed. This individual test does not establish overall model quality.

Kimi K2.6

Output withheld for safety

Reasoning (requested): high

Current attempt

Run date: 2 Oct 2026
API provider: openrouter
Requested API model: moonshotai/kimi-k2.6
API model reported in response: moonshotai/kimi-k2.6
Reasoning setting: high
Pinned endpoint: Moonshot AI | moonshotai/kimi-k2.6-20260420
Temperature: Provider default
Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens
Test protocol: community-visual-tests-v1
Technical checks: Failed
Response time: 62.7 s

Not yet visually reviewed. A successful recording does not confirm correct physics or full compliance with the prompt.

Earlier attempts (2)

1 Oct 2026Output withheld for safetyReasoning setting: high
7 Sept 2026API request failedReasoning setting: high

Prompt and test conditions

Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle

Token limit including reasoning: 8,192 tokens

Task origin (Simon Willison)

How to read this comparison

Winning one benchmark is not an overall verdict

Your workload, budget, and required context length matter most. A coding benchmark says little about visual understanding or agent performance.

The standard price table uses direct developer rates. The provider comparison labels OpenRouter endpoints, regions, and special tariffs separately.

Every result links to its measurement source and retrieval date. Labels distinguish vendor reports, official benchmark leaderboards, and independent evaluations. Disputed or archived results are excluded.

More matchups

Compare Claude Opus 4.8 and Kimi K2.6 with other leading models using the same data and benchmark logic.

View the complete LLM comparison