Claude Opus 4.6 vs Kimi K2 Thinking
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Anthropic · Jan 2026
The first Opus with a 1M-token context window at standard pricing, kicking off Anthropic's rapid 2026 release cadence.
Moonshot AI · Nov 2025
A trillion-parameter open reasoning agent that can chain 200–300 tool calls — the open-weights agentic standout of late 2025.
The verdict
Claude Opus 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Kimi K2 Thinking. On price the gap is dramatic: Kimi K2 Thinking works out roughly 9.3x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Opus 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Kimi K2 Thinking. And Kimi K2 Thinking is open-weights (Modified MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–0
Specs & pricing
| Claude Opus 4.6 | Kimi K2 Thinking | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 67.6 |
| Input price / 1M | $5 | $0.6 |
| Output price / 1M | $25 | $2.5 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | — |
| Open weights | no | yes (Modified MIT) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Aug 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Released | Jan 2026 | Nov 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $87.50 | $9.75 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- Claude Opus 4.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Kimi K2 Thinking. On price the gap is dramatic: Kimi K2 Thinking works out roughly 9.3x cheaper per blended million tokens. Claude Opus 4.6 also takes 1M of context versus 262K for Kimi K2 Thinking. And Kimi K2 Thinking is open-weights (Modified MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 4.6 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- Claude Opus 4.6 costs $5/$25 per million input/output tokens, while Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.6/$2.5. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $87.50 versus $9.75.
- Which model is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.6 or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Claude Opus 4.6 scores ~81.4% versus 71.3% for Kimi K2 Thinking, making Claude Opus 4.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.