# DeepSeek V3 vs Kimi K2.5

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for DeepSeek V3 and Kimi K2.5 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/deepseek-v3-vs-kimi-k2-5
- Last updated: September 29, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Kimi K2.5 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Kimi K2.5 leads overall 52.85 to 31.86.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 38.2 for DeepSeek V3 and 84.4 for Kimi K2.5.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SWE-bench Verified in Coding, with scores of 42% and 76.8%.
- DeepSeek V3 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Kimi K2.5 also has the larger context window at 256K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | DeepSeek | Moonshot AI |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Non-Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 256K |
| Overall Score | 31.86 | 52.85 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 6 | 45 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.27 / $1.10 | $0.60 / $3.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 12.1 (Estimated · #113/117)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 36.5 (Estimated · #61/117)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | Coming soon | 50.8% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 60.6% | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | Coming soon | 52.3% | Coming soon |
| QwenClawBench | Coming soon | 54.3% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 65.7% | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | Coming soon | 77.1% | Coming soon |
| DeepPlanning | Coming soon | 14.4% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon | Coming soon | 27.8% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 29.5% | Coming soon |
| MCP-Tasks | Coming soon | 59.1% | Coming soon |
| WideResearch | Coming soon | 72.7% | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | Coming soon | 45.88% | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | Coming soon | 14.0% | Coming soon |
| JobBench | Coming soon | 8.7% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 18.6 (Estimated · #131/143)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 38.8 (Estimated · #66/143)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench | 37.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | 42% | 76.8% | Kimi K2.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified* | Coming soon | 70.8% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | Coming soon | 85.0% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 50.7% | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 73% | Coming soon |
| SWE-Rebench | Coming soon | 58.5% | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | Coming soon | 77.2% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 48.7% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 42.3 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 55.2 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LongBench v2 | Coming soon | 61% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 66.8 (#25/50)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 78.5% | Coming soon |
| Video-MME | Coming soon | 87.4% | Coming soon |
| MMVU | Coming soon | 80.4% | Coming soon |
| VideoMMMU | Coming soon | 86.6% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #140/169)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 47.8 (Estimated · #71/169)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 59.1% | 87.6% | Kimi K2.5 |
| MMLU-Pro | 75.9% | 87.1% | Kimi K2.5 |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 87.6% | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | Coming soon | 69.2% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Arcee) | Coming soon | 87.1% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 30.1% | Coming soon |

### Multilingual

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 38.2 (#8/12)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMLU-ProX | Coming soon | 82.3% | Coming soon |
| NOVA-63 | Coming soon | 56.0% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 38.2 (#103/124)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 84.4 (#41/124)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | 86.1% | 93.9% | Kimi K2.5 |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 26 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Kimi K2.5 public-lane score: 62.1 (#4/7)

| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Kimi K2.5 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 1.724% | 27.900% | Kimi K2.5 |
| AIME 2025 | Coming soon | 96.1% | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 95.8% | Coming soon |
| AIME25 (Arcee) | Coming soon | 96.3% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2025 | Coming soon | 95.4% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Nov 2025 | Coming soon | 91.1% | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | Coming soon | 87.1% | Coming soon |
| MMAnswerBench | Coming soon | 81.8% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | Coming soon | 4.200% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, DeepSeek V3 or Kimi K2.5?

Kimi K2.5 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between DeepSeek V3 and Kimi K2.5?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 38.2 for DeepSeek V3 and 84.4 for Kimi K2.5.

### How many benchmarks does DeepSeek V3 cover on BenchLM?

DeepSeek V3 currently has 6 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Kimi K2.5 cover on BenchLM?

Kimi K2.5 currently has 45 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [DeepSeek V3 vs Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)](/compare/deepseek-v3-vs-kimi-k2-5-reasoning)
- [Kimi K2.5 vs Kimi K2.5 (Reasoning)](/compare/kimi-k2-5-vs-kimi-k2-5-reasoning)
- [DeepSeek V3 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/deepseek-v3-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Kimi K2.5 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-kimi-k2-5)

## Explore More

- [DeepSeek V3 profile](/models/deepseek-v3)
- [Kimi K2.5 profile](/models/kimi-k2-5)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)