Head-to-head comparison across 3benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
Kimi K2.6
84
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
56
Verified leaderboard positions: Kimi K2.6 #6 · Qwen3.5-35B-A3B #18
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.
Agentic
+22.5 difference
Coding
+13.6 difference
Knowledge
+25.5 difference
Kimi K2.6
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
$0.95 / $4
$0 / $0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
256K
262K
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.
Kimi K2.6 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 84 to 56. 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 73.1 against 50.6. 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.
Kimi K2.6 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 84 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 66.7% and 40.5%.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.3 versus 53.8. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Kimi K2.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 72 versus 58.4. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Kimi K2.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 50.6. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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