Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3-235B-A22B
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
Kimi K2 Thinking
67.6Moonshot AI · Nov 2025
A trillion-parameter open reasoning agent that can chain 200–300 tool calls — the open-weights agentic standout of late 2025.
Qwen3-235B-A22B
69.0Alibaba (Qwen) · Jul 2025
The most popular open general-purpose Qwen: 235B MoE with hybrid thinking, a staple of the 2025 open-source ecosystem.
The verdict
Kimi K2 Thinking wins 4 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-235B-A22B. Qwen3-235B-A22B is about 2.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).
Benchmark head-to-head 4–0
Specs & pricing
| Kimi K2 Thinking | Qwen3-235B-A22B | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 67.6 | 69.0 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.6 | $0.22 |
| Output price / 1M | $2.5 | $0.88 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Max output | — | 33K |
| Open weights | yes (Modified MIT) | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Apr 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Released | Nov 2025 | Jul 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $9.75 | $3.52 |
* 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 Thinking or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- Kimi K2 Thinking wins 4 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for Qwen3-235B-A22B. Qwen3-235B-A22B is about 2.8x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix).
- Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.6/$2.5 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.22/$0.88. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $9.75 versus $3.52.
- Which model is better for coding, Kimi K2 Thinking or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.
More comparisons
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