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Model comparison

Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 21 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.

Kimi K2.6
Moonshot AI
74/100
Margin
21.0pts
← winning
53/100
2 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Kimi K2.6 #13; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B #32

Evidence parity. Kimi K2.6 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B share 21 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 39 results are unique to Kimi K2.6; 8 to Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Updated July 13, 2026
Shared results
21
Kimi K2.6 only
39
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only
8
Comparable categories
3 / 8

Pick Kimi K2.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 21 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 3 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Kimi K2.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 74 to 53. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Kimi K2.6's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 73.5 against 51. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 66.7% to 40.5%. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Kimi K2.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.95 input / $4.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 256K for Kimi K2.6.

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 Kimi K2.6 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
CategoryKimi K2.6ΔQwen3.5-35B-A3B
KnowledgeKimi K2.642.2Margin→ 39.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B81.7
AgenticKimi K2.673.5Margin← 22.5Qwen3.5-35B-A3B51.0
CodingKimi K2.672.6Margin← 12.0Qwen3.5-35B-A3B60.6
ReasoningKimi K2.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5-35B-A3B59.0
MathKimi K2.667.1MarginNo overlapQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot measured
MultilingualKimi K2.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5-35B-A3B81.0
MultimodalKimi K2.679.8MarginNo overlapQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot measured
Inst. FollowingKimi K2.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.5-35B-A3B91.9

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Kimi K2.6B · Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

  1. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 66.7%B 40.5%
    Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 26.2
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Kimi K2.6 scored 66.7%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 40.5%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. BrowseComp

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 83.2%B 61%
    Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 22.2
    BrowseComp: Kimi K2.6 scored 83.2%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 61%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

  3. OSWorld-Verified

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 73.1%B 54.5%
    Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 18.6
    OSWorld-Verified: Kimi K2.6 scored 73.1%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 54.5%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

  4. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 80.2%B 69.2%
    Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 11
    SWE-bench Verified: Kimi K2.6 scored 80.2%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 69.2%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

  5. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 90.5%B 84.2%
    Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 6.3
    GPQA: Kimi K2.6 scored 90.5%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 84.2%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensKimi K2.6$0.95 input / $4 outputQwen3.5-35B-A3B$0 input / $0 outputQwen3.5-35B-A3B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondKimi K2.6Not availableQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenKimi K2.6Not availableQwen3.5-35B-A3BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensKimi K2.6256KQwen3.5-35B-A3B262KQwen3.5-35B-A3B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticKimi K2.6 wins
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 66.7%40.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
BrowseCompSource 83.2%61%Kimi K2.6 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 73.1%54.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
ToolathlonSource 50%—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 55.9%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 62.3%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 92.5%—Not comparable
WideResearchSource 80.8%—Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 30.3%—Not comparable
Tau2-TelecomSource 95.9%89.2%Kimi K2.6 leads
GDPval-AASource 34.5%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1190—Not comparable
APEX-Agents-AASource 28.5%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 56.82%28.96%Kimi K2.6 leads
ResearchClawBenchSource 18.0%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 4.6%—Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 809—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 19.6%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 38.5%—Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource 0.0%—Not comparable
AA ITBenchSource 31.2%—Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource 20.6%—Not comparable
CodingKimi K2.6 wins
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.2%69.2%Kimi K2.6 leads
LiveCodeBenchSource 89.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench v6Source 89.6%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 58.6%—Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 76.7%—Not comparable
SciCodeSource 52.2%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 66.7%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 37.89%—Not comparable
cursorBench31Source 47.6%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 61.8%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource 43.9%26.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%37.7%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 65.9%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource —53.7%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
AA-LCRSource 69.7%62.7%Kimi K2.6 leads
CritPtSource 8.0%0.9%Kimi K2.6 leads
LongBench v2Source —59%Not comparable
KnowledgeQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
GPQASource 90.5%84.2%Kimi K2.6 leads
GPQA-DSource 90.5%—Not comparable
HLESource 34.7%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 44.2%29.3%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 91.1%84.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-HLESource 35.9%19.7%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 6.4%-46.4%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 32.8%20.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 39.3%84.0%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA Openness IndexSource 33.3%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource —85.3%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource —63.4%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
AIME26Source 96.4%—Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 92.7%—Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 86.0%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 38.966%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 14.580%—Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
MMLU-ProXSource —81%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
MMMU-ProSource 79.4%—Not comparable
MMMU-Pro w/ PythonSource 80.1%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 80.4%—Not comparable
MathVisionSource 87.4%83.9%Kimi K2.6 leads
V*Source 96.9%92.7%Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-MMMU-ProSource 79.4%72.7%Kimi K2.6 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1318—Not comparable
MMMUSource —81.4%Not comparable
MMVUSource —72.3%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkKimi K2.6Qwen3.5-35B-A3BResult
AA-IFBenchSource 76.0%72.5%Kimi K2.6 leads
IFEvalSource —91.9%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (4)

Which is better, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Kimi K2.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 74 to 53. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 66.7% and 40.5%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.7 versus 42.2. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Kimi K2.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72.6 versus 60.6. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench Hard is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Kimi K2.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.5 versus 51. Inside this category, Gert Labs 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.

Kimi K2.6
API / mo$3,713
Self-host / mo$18,221
Break-even326M/day
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
API / mo$0
Self-host / moNot listed
Break-even—
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Model the full break-even

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Last updated: July 13, 2026

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