DeepSeek V3 vs Kimi K2.5

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Kimi K2.5 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 39 to 25. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Kimi K2.5's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 72.9 against 24.9. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SimpleQA, 24.9% to 74%. DeepSeek V3 does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Kimi K2.5 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.50 input / $2.80 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.27 input / $1.10 output per 1M tokens for DeepSeek V3. That is roughly 2.5x on output cost alone.

Quick Verdict

Pick Kimi K2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Coding

Kimi K2.5

DeepSeek V3

42

Kimi K2.5

69

42%
SWE-bench Verified
Coming soon
Coming soon
HumanEval
69%

Multimodal & Grounded

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Reasoning

Kimi K2.5

DeepSeek V3

24.9

Kimi K2.5

72.9

24.9%
SimpleQA
74%
Coming soon
MuSR
72%

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5

DeepSeek V3

69.6

Kimi K2.5

75

59.1%
GPQA
76%
88.5%
MMLU
77%
75.9%
MMLU-Pro
Coming soon
Coming soon
SuperGPQA
74%
Coming soon
OpenBookQA
72%

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Multilingual

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek V3

90.2

Kimi K2.5

76

39.2%
AIME 2024
79%
90.2%
MATH-500
Coming soon
Coming soon
AIME 2023
77%
Coming soon
AIME 2025
78%
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2023
73%
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2024
75%
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2025
74%
Coming soon
BRUMO 2025
76%

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 is ahead overall, 39 to 25. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SimpleQA, where the scores are 24.9% and 74%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 75 versus 69.6. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69 versus 42. DeepSeek V3 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

DeepSeek V3 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 90.2 versus 76. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 72.9 versus 24.9. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 17, 2026

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