Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 8B

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 32. 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 14.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 92 to 28.

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ministral 3 8B 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 8B 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 8B

28.9

75
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
77
BrowseComp
36
68
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

64.1

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

84
HumanEval
23
65
SWE-bench Verified
16
58
LiveCodeBench
15
70
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

74.3

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

72
MMMU-Pro
27
77
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

84.9

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

88
SimpleQA
28
86
MuSR
26
91
BBH
63
82
LongBench v2
38
81
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

69.7

Ministral 3 8B

28

92
MMLU
28
90
GPQA
27
88
SuperGPQA
25
86
OpenBookQA
23
81
MMLU-Pro
52
27
HLE
3
80
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

91

Ministral 3 8B

69

91
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

86.7

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

88
MGSM
63
86
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

92.6

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

94
AIME 2023
30
96
AIME 2024
32
95
AIME 2025
33
90
HMMT Feb 2023
26
92
HMMT Feb 2024
28
91
HMMT Feb 2025
27
93
BRUMO 2025
29
92
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 76 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 92 and 28.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) or Ministral 3 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.7 versus 28. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.1 versus 14.2. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 92.6 versus 43.3. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 84.9 versus 36.1. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 28.9. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.3 versus 32.4. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 69. 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 8B?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 86.7 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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