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Model comparison

Claude 4 Sonnet vs Kimi K2.5

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 16 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

42.79/100
Margin
16.9pts
winning →
Kimi K2.5
Moonshot AI
59.66/100
1 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude 4 Sonnet #158 (Supported); Kimi K2.5 #54 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude 4 Sonnet and Kimi K2.5 share 16 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 0 results are unique to Claude 4 Sonnet; 47 to Kimi K2.5.

Updated July 20, 2026
Shared results
16
Claude 4 Sonnet only
0
Kimi K2.5 only
47
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Pick Kimi K2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4 Sonnet only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 16 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Kimi K2.5 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 59.66 to 42.79. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude 4 Sonnet is also the more expensive model on tokens at $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.60 input / $3.00 output per 1M tokens for Kimi K2.5. That is roughly 5.0x on output cost alone. Kimi K2.5 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for Claude 4 Sonnet.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude 4 Sonnet and Kimi K2.5
CategoryClaude 4 SonnetΔKimi K2.5
CodingClaude 4 Sonnet72.7Margin← 13.3Kimi K2.559.4
AgenticClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.555.0
ReasoningClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.561.0
KnowledgeClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.556.9
MathClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.560.6
MultilingualClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.582.3
MultimodalClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.578.5
Inst. FollowingClaude 4 SonnetNot measuredMarginNo overlapKimi K2.593.9

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude 4 SonnetB · Kimi K2.5

  1. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 72.7%B 76.8%
    Winner: Kimi K2.5Δ 4.1
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude 4 Sonnet scored 72.7%; Kimi K2.5 scored 76.8%. Kimi K2.5 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude 4 Sonnet$3 input / $15 outputKimi K2.5$0.6 input / $3 outputKimi K2.5 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude 4 Sonnet40 tok/sKimi K2.545 tok/sKimi K2.5 has the higher measured throughput.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude 4 Sonnet1.33 sKimi K2.52.38 sClaude 4 Sonnet reaches the first token sooner.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude 4 Sonnet200KKimi K2.5256KKimi K2.5 lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
τ²-bench resultsSource 52.3%95.9%Kimi K2.5 leads
Gert LabsSource 39.66%45.88%Kimi K2.5 leads
JobBenchSource 18.4%8.7%Claude 4 Sonnet leads
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —50.8%Not comparable
BrowseCompSource —60.6%Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource —52.3%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource —54.3%Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource —65.7%Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource —77.1%Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource —14.4%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource —27.8%Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource —29.5%Not comparable
MCP-TasksSource —59.1%Not comparable
WideResearchSource —72.7%Not comparable
APEX-Agents-AASource —11.5%Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource —14.0%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —21.7%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —25.4%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1009Not comparable
CodingClaude 4 Sonnet wins
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 72.7%76.8%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 37.3%49.0%Kimi K2.5 leads
SWE-bench Verified*Source —70.8%Not comparable
LiveCodeBench v6Source —85.0%Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource —50.7%Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource —73%Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource —58.5%Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource —77.2%Not comparable
SciCodeSource —48.7%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —46.8%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
AA-LCRSource 44.3%65.3%Kimi K2.5 leads
CritPtSource 1.1%3.1%Kimi K2.5 leads
LongBench v2Source —61%Not comparable
Knowledge
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 25.5%35.4%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 68.3%87.9%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-HLESource 4.0%29.4%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -9.2%-8.1%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 22.4%34.3%Kimi K2.5 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 40.8%64.6%Claude 4 Sonnet leads
GPQASource —87.6%Not comparable
GPQA-DSource —87.6%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource —69.2%Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource —87.1%Not comparable
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source —87.1%Not comparable
HLESource —30.1%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
AIME 2025Source —96.1%Not comparable
AIME26Source —95.8%Not comparable
AIME25 (Arcee)Source —96.3%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source —95.4%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source —91.1%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source —87.1%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource —81.8%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source —27.900%Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source —4.200%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
MMLU-ProXSource —82.3%Not comparable
NOVA-63Source —56.0%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
AA-MMMU-ProSource 62.4%75.4%Kimi K2.5 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 11781282Kimi K2.5 leads
MMMU-ProSource —78.5%Not comparable
Video-MMESource —87.4%Not comparable
MMVUSource —80.4%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource —86.6%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude 4 SonnetKimi K2.5Result
AA-IFBenchSource 45.4%70.2%Kimi K2.5 leads
IFEvalSource —93.9%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Claude 4 Sonnet or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 59.66 to 42.79. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 72.7% and 76.8%.

Which is better for coding, Claude 4 Sonnet or Kimi K2.5?

Claude 4 Sonnet has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72.7 versus 59.4. Inside this category, AA-SciCode is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

Claude 4 Sonnet
API / mo$13,500
Self-host / moNot listed
Break-even—
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Kimi K2.5
API / mo$2,700
Self-host / mo$5,221
Break-even132M/day
Model the full break-even

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