Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3?

Grok 4.6 (medium) and Kimi K3 (max) are neck and neck on quality (64.2 vs 64.8, within the ±5.4 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-25, so check the category scores for your use.

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Kimi K3, and will that change?

Grok 4.6 is cheaper today: $3.00 against $6.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.

Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3 for coding?

Kimi K3 scores higher in coding (65 vs 62 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 55.9% for Grok 4.6 against 59.5% for Kimi K3.

Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3 for agents and tool use?

Grok 4.6 scores higher in agentic tasks (74 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 44.3% for Grok 4.6 against 46.0% for Kimi K3.

Which is better for long documents?

Kimi K3 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (70 vs 66). Kimi K3 accepts more context: 1,048,576 against 500,000 tokens for Grok 4.6.

Which has lower latency?

Grok 4.6 (medium) answers first: 25.5 s against 52.6 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.

Which is faster, Grok 4.6 or Kimi K3?

Grok 4.6 streams faster: 78 against 41 output tokens per second.

When was Grok 4.6 released?

Grok 4.6 was released on 11 Aug 2026.

Grok 4.6 vs Kimi K3

Full profiles: Grok 4.6 (SpaceXAI) and Kimi K3 (Moonshot AI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated 25 Oct 2026 · Data from 9 sources

As of 25 Oct 2026, Grok 4.6 (medium) and Kimi K3 (max) are neck and neck on quality (64.2 vs 64.8 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±5.4 margin of error), and Grok 4.6 (medium) costs 2.0× less, which makes it the better buy for most workloads. Pick Grok 4.6 for agents & tools (74 vs 59); pick Kimi K3 for long context (70 vs 66).

Grok 4.6 benchmarks medium SpaceXAI

Kimi K3 benchmarks max Moonshot AI Open 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 case	Pick	Why	Confidence
Coding	Kimi K3	65 vs 62 category score; SciCode 59.5% vs 55.9%	Medium
Agents & tool use	Grok 4.6	74 vs 59 category score; τ³-Banking (AA) 44.3% vs 46.0%	High
Reasoning	Kimi K3	66 vs 64 category score; CritPt 23.4% vs 17.7%	Medium
Knowledge	Grok 4.6	74 vs 63 category score; AA-Omniscience 28 vs 19.7	High
Long documents	Kimi K3	70 vs 66 category score; AA-LCR 88.7% vs 81.0%	Medium
Chat quality (human preference)	–	Only Kimi K3 has an Arena rating (68 category score)	Not comparable
Lowest cost	Grok 4.6	$3.00 vs $6.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.144 vs $0.240	–
Fastest first answer	Grok 4.6	25.5 s (Grok 4.6 (medium)) vs 52.6 s (Kimi K3 (max)) to the first answer token	–
High volume on a budget	Neither flagship	A smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs	–

Key differences

Grok 4.6 (medium) and Kimi K3 (max) are neck and neck on quality (64.2 vs 64.8, within the ±5.4 margin).
Grok 4.6 (medium) is stronger in agents & tools, knowledge.
Kimi K3 (max) is stronger in coding, composite, long context, reasoning, human preference, maths, multimodal.
Grok 4.6 (medium) is 2.0× cheaper ($3.00 vs $6.00 per 1M blended).
Grok 4.6 (medium) streams 1.9× faster (78 vs 41 tokens per second).

At a glance

Spec	Grok 4.6	Kimi K3
Developer	SpaceXAI	Moonshot AI
Released	11 Aug 2026	16 Jul 2026
Context window (tokens)	500,000	1,048,576
Compared at	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)
Open weights	No	Yes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M	$2.00 / $6.00 / $0.500	$3.00 / $15.00 / $0.300

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.

Category	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)	Leader
Reasoning	64.4	66.4	Kimi K3
Coding	62.3	64.6	Kimi K3
Agents & tools	73.5	59.4	Grok 4.6
Maths	–	63.4	not comparable
Knowledge	74.1	62.8	Grok 4.6
Human preference	–	68.1	not comparable
Multimodal	–	63.6	not comparable
Long context	65.6	69.6	Kimi K3
Composite	77.4	78.3	level

Where sources disagree

Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Grok 4.6 leads 5, Kimi K3 leads 11 and 1 is a tie. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3 ahead.

Overall index	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)	Leader
BenchLeader Index	64.2	64.8	neck and neck
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2	42.8	43.6	Kimi K3
Arena Text	1456†	1487	Kimi K3

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.

Measure	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens	$3.00	$6.00
Input / output per 1M	$2.00 / $6.00	$3.00 / $15.00
Cached input per 1M	$0.500	$0.300
Price per task: chat reply	$0.0026	$0.0057
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report	$0.028	$0.045
Price per task: code edit	$0.021	$0.041
Price per task: agentic coding session	$0.144	$0.240
Price per task: structured extraction	$0.0052	$0.0090
Cost to run a full benchmark suite	$1.14	$2.00
Output speed	78 tok/s	41 tok/s
Time to first answer	25.5 s	52.6 s
Time to a complete answer	31.9 s	65.0 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Grok 4.6 (medium) cost $1.14 and Kimi K3 (max) $2.00, because Grok 4.6 (medium) used about 1.1× as many tokens for the same work.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Grok 4.6 (medium) scores 64.2 and takes 25 s to its first answer token; Grok 4.6 (high) scores 62.9 in 25 s, Grok 4.6 (xhigh) scores 62.5 in 29 s. Kimi K3 (max) scores 64.8 and takes 53 s to its first answer token; Kimi K3 scores 58.8 in 1 s, Kimi K3 (low) scores 58.2 in 57 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

140 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.

Metric	Publisher	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)
BenchLeader Index	BenchLeader	64.2	64.8
Agents & tools score	BenchLeader	73.5	59.4
Coding score	BenchLeader	62.3	64.6
Composite score	BenchLeader	77.4	78.3
Knowledge score	BenchLeader	74.1	62.8
Long context score	BenchLeader	65.6	69.6
Reasoning score	BenchLeader	64.4	66.4
Human preference score	BenchLeader	–	68.1
Maths score	BenchLeader	–	63.4
Multimodal score	BenchLeader	–	63.6
Blended price $/M	BenchLeader	$3.00	$6.00
Output speed	BenchLeader	78 tok/s	41 tok/s
Time to first answer	BenchLeader	25.5 s	52.6 s
Context window	BenchLeader	500,000 tokens	1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	94.0%†	93.1%
SimpleBench	SimpleBench	75.9%†	60.7%
Arena Hard Prompts	Arena (LMArena)	1482†	1516
LiveBench 2.0 Reasoning	LiveBench	91.2%†	90.7%†
LiveBench 1.0 Reasoning	LiveBench	90.5%†	90.7%†
GPQA Diamond (AA)	Artificial Analysis	93.5%	93.5%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)	Artificial Analysis	42.1%	46.9%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)	Vals AI	94.7%†	92.9%†
ARC-AGI-1	ARC Prize	87.5%	94.5%
ARC-AGI-2	ARC Prize	61.3%	60.4%
ARC-AGI-3	ARC Prize	2.1%†	–
CritPt	Artificial Analysis	17.7%	23.4%
MysteryMechanism	Vals AI	30.6%†	–
Chess Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	33.0%†	36.0%
Mystery Game Puzzles	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	34.0%†	26.0%
LMCA	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	48.5%†	52.7%
DTBench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	97.3%†	91.2%
ForecastBench	ForecastBench	65.5%†	64.6%
Coding
SciCode	SciCode	55.9%	59.5%
WeirdML	WeirdML	67.3%†	82.6%
FrontierCode	Cognition	48.0%†	44.2%†
Arena Coding	Arena (LMArena)	1510†	1539
Arena WebDev	Arena (LMArena)	1617†	1655
LiveBench 2.0 Coding	LiveBench	89.1%†	59.3%†
LiveBench 1.0 Coding	LiveBench	76.8%†	81.5%†

Show all 140 benchmarks

Metric	Publisher	Grok 4.6 (medium)	Kimi K3 (max)
Coding
LiveCodeBench	Vals AI	88.2%†	87.2%
IOI	Vals AI	47.6%†	48.9%
SWE-bench (Vals)	Vals AI	95.6%†	93.4%†
Code Migration	Vals AI	44.6%†	16.1%
Code Migration v1.1	Vals AI	–	28.6%
ProgramBench	Vals AI	1.0%†	2.0%†
SWE-bench Multimodal	Vals AI	–	44.2%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100	Vals AI	14.8%†	18.2%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1	Vals AI	76.2%†	85.0%
Surface Evolver Bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	93.0%
DeepSWE v1.1	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	67.5%	68.5%
CursorBench	Cursor	36.1%	–
ALE-Bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	1508.1†	1524.5
FrontierSWE	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	25.3%†	25.9%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	13.1%	12.6%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	84.3%	85.0%
Startrise Frontend	Startrise	72.1%†	79.8%†
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	43.6%
Agents & tools
Terminal-Bench	Terminal-Bench	20.3%†	–
APEX-Agents	Mercor	65.3%†	47.8%†
Arena Agent	Arena (LMArena)	0.6†	1.6
LiveBench Long Agentic	LiveBench	40.7%†	42.8%†
LiveBench Browser	LiveBench	64.0%†	16.0%†
LiveBench Agentic Coding	LiveBench	57.0%†	62.2%†
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)	Vals AI	78.3%†	80.9%†
MCP Atlas	Scale AI SEAL	–	82.3%
HiL-Bench	Scale AI SEAL	–	42.7%†
τ³-bench Banking	τ²-bench	–	37.1%
τ³-Banking (AA)	Artificial Analysis	44.3%	46.0%
ITBench SRE (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	47.7%
Analyst Agent (AA)	Artificial Analysis	41.3%†	38.8%
APEX-Agents (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	41.3%
CyberBench	Vals AI	67.7%†	75.2%
Finance Agent v2	Vals AI	53.7%†	53.1%
Finance Agent v2.1	Vals AI	–	60.0%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1	Vals AI	–	12.9%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1	Vals AI	15.8%†	12.9%
Legal Research Bench	Vals AI	48.1%†	46.1%
SkillsBench	Vals AI	55.8%†	–
Tax Agent Bench	Vals AI	33.1%†	33.4%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)	Vals AI	17.2%†	17.2%
Terminal-Bench Science	Vals AI	11.4%†	1.4%
Time Horizon Index: KSP	Vals AI	5.8%†	10.5%
PostTrainBench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	32.0%†
GBAEval	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	–	48.4%†
Vending-Bench 2	Andon Labs	9047.0†	5165.0†
AutomationBench	Artificial Analysis	63.1%	58.3%
GDP.pdf (AA)	Artificial Analysis	17.8%	22.0%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1	Harvey	–	5.3%
EnterpriseOps-Gym	Artificial Analysis	48.3%†	45.3%
AA-Briefcase v1.1	Artificial Analysis	1531†	1499
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)	Artificial Analysis	6.2%†	8.1%
CWE-Bench (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	53.3%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	12.4%
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)	Artificial Analysis	–	58.0%
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	66.0%†	72.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	31.7%†	39.0%
OTIS Mock AIME	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	97.8%†	97.2%
ProofBench	Vals AI	51.0%†	87.0%†
LiveBench Mathematics	LiveBench	92.6%†	84.4%†
AIME 2026	MathArena	–	96.7%†
HMMT February 2026	MathArena	–	97.0%†
MathArena Apex	MathArena	–	65.6%†
Arena Maths	Arena (LMArena)	1445†	1499
Knowledge
SimpleQA Verified	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	49.3%†	50.6%
LiveBench 2.0 Data Analysis	LiveBench	75.3%†	78.7%†
LiveBench Research	LiveBench	84.5%†	79.0%†
LiveBench 1.0 Data Analysis	LiveBench	73.9%†	78.7%†
AA-Omniscience	Artificial Analysis	28	19.7
MMLU-Pro	Vals AI	89.4%†	88.0%
LegalBench	Vals AI	86.3%†	86.2%
CorpFin	Vals AI	66.2%†	71.6%†
TaxEval	Vals AI	71.1%†	75.7%†
BioMysteryBench	Vals AI	72.2%†	72.6%
Excel Modeling Benchmark	Vals AI	62.7%†	66.7%
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1	Vals AI	–	71.3%
MedCode	Vals AI	44.7%†	49.4%
MedScribe	Vals AI	86.5%†	88.0%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1	Vals AI	66.8%†	68.2%
EBR-bench	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	30.5%†	–
GDP.pdf	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	16.0%†	19.0%
AA-Omniscience: accuracy	Artificial Analysis	41.9%	47.6%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination	Artificial Analysis	76.0%	46.8%
Instruction following
LiveBench Language	LiveBench	83.7%†	85.5%†
LiveBench Instruction Following	LiveBench	71.9%†	71.4%†
Arena Instruction Following	Arena (LMArena)	1452†	1489
Human preference
Arena Text	Arena (LMArena)	1456†	1487
EQ-Bench 4	EQ-Bench	–	1318†
Arena Creative Writing	Arena (LMArena)	1443†	1462
Arena Multi-turn	Arena (LMArena)	1448†	1502
Arena Longer Queries	Arena (LMArena)	1475†	1503
Multimodal
Arena Vision	Arena (LMArena)	1263†	–
LiveBench Design	LiveBench	79.8%†	77.2%†
MMMU-Pro	Artificial Analysis	–	80.5%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)	Vals AI	–	88.2%†
MortgageTax	Vals AI	64.2%†	66.3%†
SAGE	Vals AI	28.9%†	52.8%
Blueprint-Bench 2	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	33.2%†	29.5%†
AA-3D	Artificial Analysis	–	982
Long context
AA-LCR	Artificial Analysis	81.0%	88.7%
Arena Document	Arena (LMArena)	1461†	–
MLCR	Artificial Analysis	18.3%	21.7%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities Index	Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub	156.6†	157.9†
LiveBench 2.0	LiveBench	74.9%†	63.4%†
LiveBench 1.0	LiveBench	78.0%†	79.2%†
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2	Artificial Analysis	42.8	43.6
Vals Index	Vals AI	–	53.0
Vals Finance Index	Vals AI	–	58.0%
Vals RSI Index	Vals AI	25.5%†	20.9%
Vals Science Index	Vals AI	38.1%†	–
Vals Multimodal Index	Vals AI	–	73.4%†
Vals Router Index	Vals AI	–	53.0%†
AA Cyber Index	Artificial Analysis	–	41.3
Safety & honesty
FORTRESS	Scale AI SEAL	–	26.6%
Metadata
AA Openness Index	Artificial Analysis	–	38.9

Data as of 2026-10-25. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

23 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 7 new results (Code Migration v1.1, Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1, Finance Agent v2.1…).
21 Oct 2026 Grok 4.6 (medium): 1 new result (MLCR).
21 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 1 new result (Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)); 1 score revision.
20 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 3 score revisions.
19 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 1 score revision.
18 Oct 2026 Grok 4.6 (medium): 15 new results (AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2, GPQA Diamond (AA), Humanity's Last Exam (AA)…).
18 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 1 new result (τ³-bench Banking).
16 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 8 new results (LegalBench, Vals Index, Finance Agent v2…); 5 score revisions.
15 Oct 2026 Grok 4.6 (medium): 1 score revision.
15 Oct 2026 Kimi K3 (max): 3 score revisions.

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

Grok 4.6 vs Kimi K3: questions

Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3?: Grok 4.6 (medium) and Kimi K3 (max) are neck and neck on quality (64.2 vs 64.8, within the ±5.4 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2026-10-25, so check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Kimi K3, and will that change?: Grok 4.6 is cheaper today: $3.00 against $6.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3 for coding?: Kimi K3 scores higher in coding (65 vs 62 on the category index, where 50 is average). On SciCode, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 55.9% for Grok 4.6 against 59.5% for Kimi K3.
Is Grok 4.6 better than Kimi K3 for agents and tool use?: Grok 4.6 scores higher in agentic tasks (74 vs 59 on the category index, where 50 is average). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 44.3% for Grok 4.6 against 46.0% for Kimi K3.
Which is better for long documents?: Kimi K3 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (70 vs 66). Kimi K3 accepts more context: 1,048,576 against 500,000 tokens for Grok 4.6.
Which has lower latency?: Grok 4.6 (medium) answers first: 25.5 s against 52.6 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.
Which is faster, Grok 4.6 or Kimi K3?: Grok 4.6 streams faster: 78 against 41 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Grok 4.6 vs Kimi K3?: Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Grok 4.6 leads 5, Kimi K3 leads 11 and 1 is a tie. Every overall index that rates both puts Kimi K3 ahead.
When was Grok 4.6 released?: Grok 4.6 was released on 11 Aug 2026.