Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3-Max
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Moonshot AI · Apr 2026
Moonshot's multimodal flagship that ties GPT-5.5 on several coding evaluations at a fraction of the price, with open weights.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Sep 2025
Alibaba's trillion-parameter API flagship — frontier-adjacent quality with strong agentic tool use at mid-tier prices.
The verdict
Kimi K2.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Max. Kimi K2.6 is about 1.4x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). And Kimi K2.6 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
| Kimi K2.6 | Qwen3-Max | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 80.5 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.95 | $1.2 |
| Output price / 1M | $4 | $6 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | 262K | 66K |
| Open weights | yes (Modified MIT) | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Feb 2026 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2026 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $15.50 | $21.00 |
* 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, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- Kimi K2.6 wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-Max. Kimi K2.6 is about 1.4x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). And Kimi K2.6 is open-weights (Modified MIT), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- Kimi K2.6 costs $0.95/$4 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Max costs $1.2/$6. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $15.50 versus $21.00.
- Which model is better for coding, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3-Max?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Kimi K2.6 scores ~82.5% versus 69.6% for Qwen3-Max, making Kimi K2.6 the stronger pick for coding agents.