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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) vs Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.7 Max

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) comes out ahead, 68 to 65 and 58 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Our pick

    xAI

    Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)

    Released Mar 9, 2026

    68/100
    • ECI152.0
    • Price$1.25 / $2.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)

  2. Moonshot AI

    Kimi K2.6

    Released Apr 21, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI151.1
    • Price$0.95 / $4.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Kimi K2.6

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.7 Max

    Released May 21, 2026

    58/100
    • ECI153.7
    • Price$2.50 / $7.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.7 Max
01 — Verdict

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) is our pick

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) is the better all-round choice, scoring 68/100 against Kimi K2.6 (65) and Qwen3.7 Max (58). It leads on price. Qwen3.7 Max wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.7 MaxCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Max 153.7 · Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 152.0 · Kimi K2.6 151.1
  • Lowest priceGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) $1.56 · Kimi K2.6 $1.71 · Qwen3.7 Max $3.75 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGrok 4.20 (Reasoning) and Qwen3.7 MaxGrok 4.20 (Reasoning) 1,000,000 · Qwen3.7 Max 1,000,000 · Kimi K2.6 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsGrok 4.20 (Reasoning) and Kimi K2.6Grok 4.20 (Reasoning): Text, Images, PDFs · Kimi K2.6: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.7 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingKimi K2.6Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)Kimi K2.6Qwen3.7 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%817983
Price25%413923
Inputs & features15%808035
Context window10%603760
Overall100%68/10065/10058/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) vs Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.7 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)xAIKimi K2.6Moonshot AIQwen3.7 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)152.0151.1153.7 (best)
ECI rank#41 of 148#45 of 148#37 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions89.3%90.8%90.9% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics44.9%57.2%64.6% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics92.2%96.1% (best)95.6%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—76.7%77.3% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions30.2%34.9%55.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$1.25$0.95 (best)$2.50
Output$2.50 (best)$4.00$7.50
Cached input$0.20$0.16 (best)$0.50
Blended (3:1)$1.56 (best)$1.71$3.75
Long-context rateOver 200K: $2.50 / $5.00Same rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial xAI APIOfficial Moonshot AI APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output30,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenProprietary
API model IDgrok-4.20-0309-reasoningkimi-k2.6qwen3.7-max
API providers1146 (best)26
ReleasedMar 9, 2026Apr 21, 2026May 21, 2026
Knowledge cutoff—Jan 2025—
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)$17.50
  • Kimi K2.6$17.50
  • Qwen3.7 Max$40.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Grok 4.20 (Reasoning), Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.7 Max?

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) is the better all-round choice, scoring 68/100 against Kimi K2.6 (65) and Qwen3.7 Max (58). It leads on price. Qwen3.7 Max wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning), Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.7 Max?

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) is cheaper at $1.25 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official xAI API price). Kimi K2.6 costs $0.95 input / $4.00 output per million tokens (official Moonshot AI API price); Qwen3.7 Max costs $2.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $1.56 per million tokens for Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) versus $1.71 for Kimi K2.6 (1.1× as much) and $3.75 for Qwen3.7 Max (2.4× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.7 Max scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.7 Max 153.7 (#37 of 148), Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 152.0 (#41 of 148) and Kimi K2.6 151.1 (#45 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (151.9–156.0 vs 149.3–154.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.7 Max 90.9%, Kimi K2.6 90.8%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 89.3%; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 — Qwen3.7 Max 64.6%, Kimi K2.6 57.2%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 44.9%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Kimi K2.6 96.1%, Qwen3.7 Max 95.6%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 92.2%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3.7 Max 55.8%, Kimi K2.6 34.9%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 30.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.7 Max leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) and Qwen3.7 Max have the largest context windows (1,000,000 and 1,000,000 tokens), against 262,144 for Kimi K2.6. Maximum output per response: Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) up to 30,000, Kimi K2.6 up to 262,144, Qwen3.7 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) accepts text, images and PDFs; Kimi K2.6 accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.7 Max accepts text. Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Kimi K2.6 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) and Qwen3.7 Max is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.7 Max is the newest, released May 21, 2026. Kimi K2.6 came out Apr 21, 2026; Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) came out Mar 9, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Kimi K2.6 Jan 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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