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

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 36. 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 15.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 92 to 30.

Quick Verdict

Pick Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

73.1

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

38.5

75
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
77
BrowseComp
41
68
OSWorld-Verified
36

Coding

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

64.1

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

15.2

84
HumanEval
24
65
SWE-bench Verified
17
58
LiveCodeBench
16
70
SWE-bench Pro
14

Multimodal & Grounded

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

74.3

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

33.4

72
MMMU-Pro
28
77
OfficeQA Pro
40

Reasoning

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

84.9

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

42.1

88
SimpleQA
32
86
MuSR
33
91
BBH
70
82
LongBench v2
44
81
MRCRv2
47

Knowledge

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

69.7

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

30

92
MMLU
30
90
GPQA
29
88
SuperGPQA
27
86
OpenBookQA
25
81
MMLU-Pro
54
27
HLE
5
80
FrontierScience
34

Instruction Following

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

91

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

70

91
IFEval
70

Multilingual

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

86.7

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

61.7

88
MGSM
63
86
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)

92.6

Ministral 3 8B (Reasoning)

47.8

94
AIME 2023
33
96
AIME 2024
35
95
AIME 2025
34
90
HMMT Feb 2023
29
92
HMMT Feb 2024
31
91
HMMT Feb 2025
30
93
BRUMO 2025
32
92
MATH-500
67

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) is ahead overall, 76 to 36. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 92 and 30.

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

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.7 versus 30. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.1 versus 15.2. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 92.6 versus 47.8. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 84.9 versus 42.1. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 38.5. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.3 versus 33.4. 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 (Reasoning)?

Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 70. 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 (Reasoning)?

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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