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Gemini 4 Carbon vs Kimi K2.6

Full profiles: Gemini 4 Carbon (Google) and Kimi K2.6 (Moonshot AI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 7 sources

As of 29 Oct 2026, Gemini 4 Carbon and Kimi K2.6 are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 59.8 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±8.1 margin), and Kimi K2.6 is 4.7× cheaper at $1.71 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. They are level in every category we measure both in. Gemini 4 Carbon streams ~1.5× faster.

Key facts (as of 29 Oct 2026)

  • Gemini 4 Carbon scores 65.1 on the BenchLeader Index and Kimi K2.6 scores 59.8 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Kimi K2.6 costs $1.71 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon streams ~1.5× faster than Kimi K2.6 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 29 Oct 2026).
  • Of the 8 benchmarks both models have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 7 (BenchLeader, 29 Oct 2026).
Gemini 4 Carbon benchmarks high Google 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
Long documentsEither65 vs 65 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 79.3% vs 81.0%Either
Lowest costKimi K2.6$1.71 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.073 vs $0.320–
Fastest first answerEither103.1 s (Gemini 4 Carbon (high)) vs 89.7 s (Kimi K2.6 (thinking)) 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

  • Gemini 4 Carbon (high) and Kimi K2.6 (thinking) are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 59.8, within the ±8.1 margin).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon (high) is stronger in coding, knowledge, reasoning.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking) is stronger in long context, agents & tools, instruction following, maths, multimodal.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking) is 4.7× cheaper ($1.71 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).
  • Gemini 4 Carbon (high) streams 1.9× faster (100 vs 51 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecGemini 4 CarbonKimi K2.6
DeveloperGoogleMoonshot AI
Released28 Oct 202620 Apr 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,000262,144
Compared atGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Open weightsNoYes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$4.00 / $20.00 / –$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.

CategoryGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)Leader
Reasoning78.9–not comparable
Coding71.7–not comparable
Agents & tools–58.4not comparable
Maths–57.3not comparable
Knowledge75.8–not comparable
Instruction following–74.0not comparable
Multimodal–62.1not comparable
Long context64.565.4level

Where sources disagree

Across the 8 benchmarks both have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 7, Kimi K2.6 leads 1.

Overall indexGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)Leader
BenchLeader Index65.159.8neck and neck

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.

MeasureGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Blended price per 1M tokens$8.00$1.71
Input / output per 1M$4.00 / $20.00$0.950 / $4.00
Cached input per 1M–$0.160
Price per task: chat reply$0.0076$0.0016
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.060$0.014
Price per task: code edit$0.054$0.012
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.320$0.073
Price per task: structured extraction$0.012$0.0027
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$7.76–
Output speed100 tok/s51 tok/s
Time to first answer103.1 s89.7 s
Time to a complete answer108.1 s99.4 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 4 Carbon (high) scores 65.1 and takes 103 s to its first answer token. Kimi K2.6 (thinking) scores 59.8 and takes 90 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

107 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.

MetricPublisherGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader65.159.8
Coding scoreBenchLeader71.7–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader75.8–
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.565.4
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader78.9–
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader–58.4
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–74.0
Maths scoreBenchLeader–57.3
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–62.1
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$8.00$1.71
Output speedBenchLeader100 tok/s51 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader103.1 s89.7 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens262,144 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–90.8%†
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)–1485†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench–79.4%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis–91.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis60.4%37.5%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis69.1%–
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI–89.1%†
CritPtArtificial Analysis36.0%8.0%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis63.0%–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–20.0%†
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–18.0%†
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–37.3%†
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–90.9%†
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–76.7%†
SciCodeSciCode64.2%53.5%†
WeirdMLWeirdML–55.9%†
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)–1516†
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)–1509†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench–78.6%
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis64.2%51.5%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI–86.8%†
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI–76.2%†
Code MigrationVals AI–27.8%†
ProgramBenchVals AI–0.0%†
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI89.1%37.9%†
Show all 107 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGemini 4 Carbon (high)Kimi K2.6 (thinking)
Coding
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–1092.7†
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis65.2%0.5%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–65.9%
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis48.5%–
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis40.6%–
Agents & tools
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld–4.6%†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench–46.9%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis–43.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis–95.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI–53.6%†
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL–18.7%†
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis–23.3%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–31.2%
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis–28.5%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI–44.9%†
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI67.2%–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI17.5%–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI–1.7%†
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.8%15.9%†
Tax Agent BenchVals AI48.9%12.4%†
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI–57.3%†
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI63.1%–
ExploitBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–18.4%†
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–0.9%†
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs16484.2†6204.6†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis77.8%13.0%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis28.4%13.0%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–38.5%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1609–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis64.8%–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–57.2%†
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–25.6%†
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–96.1%†
ProofBenchVals AI–16.0%†
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench–84.3%
AIME 2026MathArena–95.8%
HMMT February 2026MathArena–94.7%
USAMO 2026MathArena–51.2%
MathArena ApexMathArena–24.0%
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)–1479†
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–34.9%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench–65.1%
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis53.5–
MMLU-ProVals AI–87.6%†
LegalBenchVals AI–84.7%†
CorpFinVals AI–66.7%†
TaxEvalVals AI–74.7%†
CaseLaw v2Vals AI–61.2%†
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI–57.9%†
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI76.5%–
MedCodeVals AI–40.1%†
MedScribeVals AI–78.2%†
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI–56.6%†
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–2.4%†
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–12.0%†
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis58.3%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis88.6%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench–75.1%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench–64.4%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis–76.0%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)–1455†
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)–1461†
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench–1191†
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)–1432†
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)–1461†
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)–1477†
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)–1282†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis–79.4%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI–86.3%†
MortgageTaxVals AI–65.8%†
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub58.6%†3.9%†
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis79.3%81.0%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)–1450†
MLCRArtificial Analysis–11.1%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–150.9†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench–70.5%
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis59.4–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis–27.0
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis351.6284.4
Vals IndexVals AI70.4–
Vals Finance IndexVals AI66.3%–
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI–56.4%†

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

What changed

  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): BenchLeader Index 60.3 → 59.8.
  • 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).
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 1 new result (MLCR).
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 4 new results (USAMO 2026, AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA)…).
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 1 score revision.
  • Kimi K2.6 (thinking): 19 new results (AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2, GPQA Diamond (AA), Humanity's Last Exam (AA)…).

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

Gemini 4 Carbon vs Kimi K2.6: questions

Is Gemini 4 Carbon better than Kimi K2.6?
Gemini 4 Carbon (high) and Kimi K2.6 (thinking) are neck and neck on quality (65.1 vs 59.8, within the ±8.1 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 29 Oct 2026, so check the category scores for your use.
Gemini 4 Carbon vs Kimi K2.6: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Kimi K2.6 is cheaper today: $1.71 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Which is faster, Gemini 4 Carbon or Kimi K2.6?
Gemini 4 Carbon streams ~1.5× faster (100 vs 51 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 65). Gemini 4 Carbon accepts more context: 1,000,000 against 262,144 tokens for Kimi K2.6.
Which has lower latency?
Kimi K2.6 answers first: 89.7 s against 103.1 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.
More questions (2)
Do independent benchmarks agree on Gemini 4 Carbon vs Kimi K2.6?
Across the 8 benchmarks both have, Gemini 4 Carbon leads 7, Kimi K2.6 leads 1.
When was Gemini 4 Carbon released?
Gemini 4 Carbon was released on 28 Oct 2026.