Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 3B

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

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 76 to 27. 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 coding, where it averages 64.1 against 6.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2023, 94 to 23.

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ministral 3 3B 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.

Quick Verdict

Pick Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

73.1

Ministral 3 3B

22.9

75
Terminal-Bench 2.0
19
77
BrowseComp
33
68
OSWorld-Verified
20

Coding

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

64.1

Ministral 3 3B

6.2

84
HumanEval
15
65
SWE-bench Verified
8
58
LiveCodeBench
7
70
SWE-bench Pro
5

Multimodal & Grounded

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

74.3

Ministral 3 3B

30.4

72
MMMU-Pro
25
77
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

84.9

Ministral 3 3B

30.1

88
SimpleQA
22
86
MuSR
20
91
BBH
57
82
LongBench v2
32
81
MRCRv2
35

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

69.7

Ministral 3 3B

24.5

92
MMLU
24
90
GPQA
23
88
SuperGPQA
21
86
OpenBookQA
19
81
MMLU-Pro
48
27
HLE
1
80
FrontierScience
28

Instruction Following

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

91

Ministral 3 3B

67

91
IFEval
67

Multilingual

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

86.7

Ministral 3 3B

59.7

88
MGSM
61
86
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

92.6

Ministral 3 3B

36

94
AIME 2023
23
96
AIME 2024
25
95
AIME 2025
24
90
HMMT Feb 2023
19
92
HMMT Feb 2024
21
91
HMMT Feb 2025
20
93
BRUMO 2025
22
92
MATH-500
53

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 76 to 27. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2023, where the scores are 94 and 23.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.7 versus 24.5. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.1 versus 6.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 92.6 versus 36. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 84.9 versus 30.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 22.9. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.3 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 3B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 86.7 versus 59.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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