Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) vs GPT-4.1 mini

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

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 82 to 35. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)'s sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 92.9 against 23.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 96 to 23.1.

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4.1 mini is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. GPT-4.1 mini gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning).

Quick Verdict

Pick Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 mini only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

77.3

GPT-4.1 mini

75.9

92
MMLU
87.5
90
GPQA
64.2
88
SuperGPQA
-
86
OpenBookQA
-
81
MMLU-Pro
-
27
HLE
-

Coding

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

69

GPT-4.1 mini

23.6

84
HumanEval
-
65
SWE-bench Verified
23.6
58
LiveCodeBench
-

Mathematics

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

92.9

GPT-4.1 mini

23.1

94
AIME 2023
-
96
AIME 2024
23.1
95
AIME 2025
-
90
HMMT Feb 2023
-
92
HMMT Feb 2024
-
91
HMMT Feb 2025
-
93
BRUMO 2025
-
92
MATH-500
-

Reasoning

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)
88
SimpleQA
-
86
MuSR
-
91
BBH
-

Instruction Following

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

91

GPT-4.1 mini

88.5

91
IFEval
88.5

Multilingual

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)
88
MGSM
-

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or GPT-4.1 mini?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 82 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 96 and 23.1.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or GPT-4.1 mini?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.3 versus 75.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or GPT-4.1 mini?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69 versus 23.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or GPT-4.1 mini?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 92.9 versus 23.1. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or GPT-4.1 mini?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 88.5. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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