Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Kimi K2.5
64
o3-mini
56
Verified leaderboard positions: Kimi K2.5 #11 · o3-mini unranked
Pick Kimi K2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Coding
+14.9 difference
Knowledge
+12.1 difference
Inst. Following
Kimi K2.5
o3-mini
$0.6 / $3
$1.1 / $4.4
45 t/s
160 t/s
2.38s
7.12s
256K
200K
Pick Kimi K2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
Kimi K2.5 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 64 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Kimi K2.5's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 64.2 against 49.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 76.8% to 49.3%. o3-mini does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.60 input / $3.00 output per 1M tokens for Kimi K2.5. o3-mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while Kimi K2.5 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. Kimi K2.5 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for o3-mini.
Kimi K2.5 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 64 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 76.8% and 49.3%.
o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 65.1. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Kimi K2.5 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.2 versus 49.3. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Kimi K2.5 and o3-mini are effectively tied for instruction following here, both landing at 93.9 on average.
Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.
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