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Claude Fable 5.1 vs Kimi K2.6

Full profiles: Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) and Kimi K2.6 (Moonshot AI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 10 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, Claude Fable 5.1 is ahead of Kimi K2.6 on quality (67.0 vs 59.8 on the BenchLeader Index), but Kimi K2.6 is 12× cheaper at $1.71 vs $20.00 per 1M tokens blended. Claude Fable 5.1 leads in every category we measure both in.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

  • Claude Fable 5.1 scores 67.0 on the BenchLeader Index and Kimi K2.6 scores 59.8 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Claude Fable 5.1 costs $20.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Kimi K2.6 costs $1.71 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Of the 21 benchmarks both models have, Claude Fable 5.1 leads 21 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Claude Fable 5.1 benchmarks max Anthropic Kimi K2.6 benchmarks thinking Moonshot AIOpen in the comparison tool

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
Agents & tool useClaude Fable 5.161 vs 58 category score; τ³-Banking (AA) 47.2% vs 23.3%Medium
MathsClaude Fable 5.173 vs 57 category score; LiveBench Mathematics 97.0% vs 84.3%High
Long documentsClaude Fable 5.168 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 85.3% vs 81.0%Medium
Images and other mediaClaude Fable 5.167 vs 62 category scoreMedium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Claude Fable 5.1 has an Arena rating (70 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costKimi K2.6$1.71 vs $20.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.073 vs $0.800–
Fastest first answerKimi K2.698.4 s (Kimi K2.6 (thinking)) vs 179.6 s (Claude Fable 5.1 (max)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max) leads on quality: 67.0 vs 59.8.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, human preference, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking) is stronger in instruction following.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking) is 12× cheaper ($1.71 vs $20.00 per 1M blended).
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max) streams 1.4× faster (66 vs 47 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Fable 5.1Kimi K2.6
DeveloperAnthropicMoonshot AI
Released1 Sept 202620 Apr 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,000262,144
Compared atClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Open weightsNoYes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$10.00 / $50.00 / $0.250$0.950 / $4.00 / $0.160

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)Leader
Reasoning70.8–not comparable
Coding70.7–not comparable
Agents & tools60.558.4Claude Fable 5.1
Maths72.657.3Claude Fable 5.1
Knowledge72.9–not comparable
Instruction following–74.0not comparable
Human preference69.9–not comparable
Multimodal67.162.1Claude Fable 5.1
Long context67.665.4Claude Fable 5.1

Where sources disagree

Across the 21 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5.1 leads 21, Kimi K2.6 leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5.1 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)Leader
BenchLeader Index67.059.8Claude Fable 5.1
Arena Text15031461†Claude Fable 5.1

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Blended price per 1M tokens$20.00$1.71
Input / output per 1M$10.00 / $50.00$0.950 / $4.00
Cached input per 1M$0.250$0.160
Price per task: chat reply$0.019$0.0016
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.150$0.014
Price per task: code edit$0.135$0.012
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.800$0.073
Price per task: structured extraction$0.030$0.0027
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$12.99–
Output speed66 tok/s47 tok/s
Time to first answer179.6 s98.4 s
Time to a complete answer187.2 s109.2 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Fable 5.1 (max) scores 67.0 and takes 180 s to its first answer token; Claude Fable 5.1 scores 66.4 in 3 s, Claude Fable 5.1 (xhigh) scores 64.9 in 58 s. Kimi K2.6 (thinking) scores 59.8 and takes 98 s to its first answer token; Kimi K2.6 scores 55.3 in 1 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

155 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader67.059.8
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader60.558.4
Coding scoreBenchLeader70.7–
Human preference scoreBenchLeader69.9–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader72.9–
Long context scoreBenchLeader67.665.4
Maths scoreBenchLeader72.657.3
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader67.162.1
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader70.8–
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–74.0
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$20.00$1.71
Output speedBenchLeader66 tok/s47 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader179.6 s98.4 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens262,144 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–90.8%†
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS46.5%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)15231485†
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.7%†–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.7%79.4%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis93.7%91.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis59.1%37.5%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis60.1%–
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.4%†89.1%†
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize90.0%–
CritPtArtificial Analysis29.7%8.0%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis51.0%–
MysteryMechanismVals AI47.8%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub48.0%20.0%†
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub58.0%18.0%†
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub65.5%†37.3%†
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub97.6%†90.9%†
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–76.7%†
SciCodeSciCode63.1%53.5%†
WeirdMLWeirdML92.9%55.9%†
FrontierCodeCognition50.9%†–
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench88.2%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)15381516†
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)17451509†
Show all 155 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Fable 5.1 (max)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Coding
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench97.7%†–
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench86.4%78.6%
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis63.1%51.5%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI90.5%†86.8%†
IOIVals AI90.8%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI–76.2%†
Code MigrationVals AI54.6%†27.8%†
ProgramBenchVals AI7.0%†0.0%†
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI61.3%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI28.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI90.3%†37.9%†
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL60.0%†–
SWE Atlas: RefactoringScale AI SEAL56.7%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL67.0%†–
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.3%†–
CursorBenchCursor51.8%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2143.2†1092.7†
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub56.3%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis52.0%0.5%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis91.4%65.9%
Startrise FrontendStartrise77.1%†–
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis49.0%–
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis31.6%–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench57.9%–
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld–4.6%†
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS17.9%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor68.6%†–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)13.9–
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench77.9%†–
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench89.8%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench66.1%46.9%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis–43.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis–95.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI85.0%†53.6%†
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL87.2%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL61.5%†18.7%†
GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised scoreArtificial Analysis62.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis1764–
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis47.2%23.3%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis49.5%31.2%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis57.5%–
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis–28.5%
CUA-benchVals AI13.2%–
CyberBenchVals AI70.4%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.9%†44.9%†
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI6.7%†1.7%†
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.3%†15.9%†
Robo-benchVals AI5.8%–
SkillsBenchVals AI61.5%†–
SREBenchVals AI22.9%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI49.2%†12.4%†
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI–57.3%†
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI58.1%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI40.0%†–
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI63.3%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1233†–
ExploitBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–18.4%†
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–0.9%†
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs5421.6†6204.6†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis59.4%13.0%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis26.2%13.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey6.4%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–38.5%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1669–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis43.3%–
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis50.8%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis23.5%–
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis0.8%–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.2%57.2%†
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.8%25.6%†
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub100.0%96.1%†
ProofBenchVals AI100.0%16.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench97.0%84.3%
AIME 2026MathArena–95.8%
HMMT February 2026MathArena–94.7%
USAMO 2026MathArena–51.2%
MathArena ApexMathArena–24.0%
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)15291479†
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub70.8%34.9%†
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%†–
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench82.0%†–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%65.1%
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis46.3–
MMLU-ProVals AI92.4%†87.6%†
LegalBenchVals AI88.5%†84.7%†
CorpFinVals AI–66.7%†
TaxEvalVals AI76.0%†74.7%†
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL50.8%†–
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL51.6%†–
CaseLaw v2Vals AI–61.2%†
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI76.7%†57.9%†
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI76.7%†–
MedCodeVals AI53.5%†40.1%†
MedScribeVals AI91.3%†78.2%†
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI74.9%†56.6%†
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub57.1%2.4%†
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub27.6%12.0%†
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis68.4%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis30.0%–
HealthBench Professional (AA)OpenAI57.8%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench89.5%75.1%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench73.0%64.4%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis–76.0%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)15011455†
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)15031461†
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench–1191†
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)14871432†
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)14881461†
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)15111477†
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)13201282†
LiveBench DesignLiveBench83.4%†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–79.4%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI90.6%†86.3%†
MortgageTaxVals AI70.8%†65.8%†
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub41.9%†3.9%†
Code2Video-AAArtificial Analysis1325–
AA-3DArtificial Analysis1135–
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis85.3%81.0%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)14931450†
MLCRArtificial Analysis15.6%11.1%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub166.5†150.9†
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench85.7%†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench83.4%70.5%
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis49.0–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis53.427.0
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis340.8284.4
Vals RSI IndexVals AI36.1%–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI–56.4%†
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis25.0–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL13.7%†–

Data as of 2026-10-29. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max): BenchLeader Index 67.9 → 67.1.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): BenchLeader Index 60.3 → 59.8.
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 5 new results (AA Intelligence Index v5.0, AA Progress Index v1, HLE-Diamond (AA)…); 3 score revisions; cost per task moved from $7.63/M to $13.04/M (71% up).
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): cost per task moved from $0.80/M to $0.71/M (12% down).
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 2 new results (Robo-bench, Vals RSI Index).
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 1 new result (MLCR).
  • Claude Fable 5.1 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 4 new results (USAMO 2026, AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA)…).

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Fable 5.1 vs Kimi K2.6: questions

Is Claude Fable 5.1 better than Kimi K2.6?
Claude Fable 5.1 (max) leads on quality: 67.0 vs 59.8. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Fable 5.1 (max) is ahead overall as of 29 Oct 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
Claude Fable 5.1 vs Kimi K2.6: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Kimi K2.6 is cheaper today: $1.71 against $20.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Which is faster, Claude Fable 5.1 or Kimi K2.6?
Claude Fable 5.1 streams faster (66 vs 47 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is Claude Fable 5.1 or Kimi K2.6 better for agents and tool use?
Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher in agentic tasks (61 vs 58 on the category index, where 50 is average). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 47.2% for Claude Fable 5.1 against 23.3% for Kimi K2.6.
Which is better for long documents?
Claude Fable 5.1 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (68 vs 65). Claude Fable 5.1 accepts more context: 1,000,000 against 262,144 tokens for Kimi K2.6.
More questions (3)
Which has lower latency?
Kimi K2.6 answers first: 98.4 s against 179.6 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Fable 5.1 vs Kimi K2.6?
Across the 21 benchmarks both have, Claude Fable 5.1 leads 21, Kimi K2.6 leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Fable 5.1 ahead.
When was Claude Fable 5.1 released?
Claude Fable 5.1 was released on 1 Sept 2026.