Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Kimi K2 Thinking
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Google · May 2026
Google's I/O 2026 headliner: near-Pro intelligence at Flash speed, 78.8% on SWE-bench Verified with full multimodal input.
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
Gemini 3.5 Flash 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 3.1x cheaper per blended million tokens. Gemini 3.5 Flash 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
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | Kimi K2 Thinking | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 67.6 |
| Input price / 1M | $1.5 | $0.6 |
| Output price / 1M | $9 | $2.5 |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | — |
| Open weights | no | yes (Modified MIT) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image, audio, video | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 2026 | Apr 2025 |
| Released | May 2026 | Nov 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $28.50 | $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, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- Gemini 3.5 Flash 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 3.1x cheaper per blended million tokens. Gemini 3.5 Flash 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, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- Gemini 3.5 Flash costs $1.5/$9 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 $28.50 versus $9.75.
- Which model is better for coding, Gemini 3.5 Flash or Kimi K2 Thinking?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Gemini 3.5 Flash scores 78.8% versus 71.3% for Kimi K2 Thinking, making Gemini 3.5 Flash the stronger pick for coding agents.