# Kimi K2.6 vs Step 5 Preview

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Kimi K2.6 and Step 5 Preview across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/kimi-2-6-vs-step-5-preview
- Last updated: September 21, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 6
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Step 5 Preview if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Kimi K2.6 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Step 5 Preview leads overall 72 to 65.77.
- The clearest category separation is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 63.9 for Kimi K2.6 and 61.2 for Step 5 Preview.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is MCP Atlas in Agentic, with scores of 55.9% and 85.6%.
- Step 5 Preview is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Step 5 Preview also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Moonshot AI | StepFun |
| Type | Open Weight | Pending |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 65.77 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 37 | 22 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.95 / $4.00 | $1.00 / $2.70 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: 47.6 (Supported · #73/154)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | 83.2% | 88.7% | Step 5 Preview |
| OSWorld-Verified | 73.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon | 50% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 55.9% | 85.6% | Step 5 Preview |
| Claw-Eval | 62.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSearchQA | 92.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| WideResearch | 80.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 56.82% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ResearchClawBench | 18.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 4.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 53.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 85.0% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | Coming soon | 33.30% | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | Coming soon | 84.7% | Coming soon |
| AutomationBench | Coming soon | 44.0% | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | Coming soon | 74.1% | Coming soon |
| JobBench | Coming soon | 59.0% | Coming soon |
| APEX-Agents | Coming soon | 37.8% | Coming soon |
| DRACO | Coming soon | 83.3% | Coming soon |
| Agents' Last Exam | Coming soon | 29.5% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: 51.5 (Supported · #54/156)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 89.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 58.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | 76.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SciCode | 52.2% | 58.9% | Step 5 Preview |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 66.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 37.89% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench31 | 47.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 86.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 76.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| DeepSWE | Coming soon | 67.7% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 85.0% | Coming soon |
| ProgramBench | Coming soon | 80.5% | Coming soon |
| sweMarathon | Coming soon | 72.7% | Coming soon |
| MLS-Bench Lite | Coming soon | 40.5% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: 78.5 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CritPt | Coming soon | 20.9% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: 63.9 (#26/49)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: 61.2 (#28/49)

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 79.4% | 76% | Kimi K2.6 |
| MMMU-Pro w/ Python | 80.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | 80.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MathVision | 87.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| V* | 96.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OfficeQA Pro | Coming soon | 60.3% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: 61.5 (Supported · #32/186)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 90.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | 90.5% | 93.5% | Step 5 Preview |
| HLE | 34.7% | 46.5% | Step 5 Preview |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 89.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Kimi K2.6 public-lane score: 71 (#1/7)
- Step 5 Preview public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Kimi K2.6 | Step 5 Preview | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 96.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 92.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMAnswerBench | 86.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 38.966% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 14.580% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Kimi K2.6 or Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Kimi K2.6 and Step 5 Preview?

The widest category gap is in multimodal & grounded, where the averages are 63.9 for Kimi K2.6 and 61.2 for Step 5 Preview.

### How many benchmarks does Kimi K2.6 cover on BenchLM?

Kimi K2.6 currently has 37 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Step 5 Preview cover on BenchLM?

Step 5 Preview currently has 22 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Kimi K2.6 vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-kimi-2-6)
- [Step 5 Preview vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-step-5-preview)
- [Kimi K2.6 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-kimi-2-6)
- [Step 5 Preview vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/gpt-6-astra-vs-step-5-preview)

## Explore More

- [Kimi K2.6 profile](/models/kimi-2-6)
- [Step 5 Preview profile](/models/step-5-preview)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)