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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Grok 4.3 vs Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Too close to call on our weighted score (Grok 4.3 67, Qwen3.5 Plus 66, Kimi K2 Thinking 58). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. xAI

    Grok 4.3

    Released Apr 17, 2026

    67/100
    • ECI149.2
    • Price$1.25 / $2.50
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Grok 4.3

  2. Moonshot AI

    Kimi K2 Thinking

    Released Nov 6, 2025

    58/100
    • ECI146.0
    • Price$0.60 / $2.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Kimi K2 Thinking

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Grok 4.3 67/100, Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Kimi K2 Thinking 58/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Grok 4.3 for raw capability and Qwen3.5 Plus on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityGrok 4.3Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.3 149.2 · Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Kimi K2 Thinking $1.07 · Grok 4.3 $1.56 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGrok 4.3 and Qwen3.5 PlusGrok 4.3 1,000,000 · Qwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Kimi K2 Thinking 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsGrok 4.3 and Qwen3.5 PlusGrok 4.3: Text, Images, PDFs · Kimi K2 Thinking: Text · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingKimi K2 ThinkingPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGrok 4.3Kimi K2 ThinkingQwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%777374
Price25%414852
Inputs & features15%803570
Context window10%603760
Overall100%67/10058/10066/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Grok 4.3 vs Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3.5 Plus specifications side by side
SpecificationGrok 4.3xAIKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AIQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)149.2 (best)146.0146.8
ECI rank#55 of 148 (best)#72 of 148#65 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions88.8% (best)84.2%84.9%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics42.8%——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics93.3% (best)83.1%86.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions33.2% (best)—25.4%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.25$0.60$0.40 (best)
Output$2.50$2.50$2.40 (best)
Cached input$0.20——
Blended (3:1)$1.56$1.07$0.90 (best)
Long-context rateOver 200K: $2.50 / $5.00Same rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial xAI APIMedian of 10 providersOfficial 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
ImagesYesNoYes
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoYes
ReasoningYeslow · medium · highYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenProprietary
API model IDgrok-4.3—qwen3.5-plus
API providers27 (best)1010
ReleasedApr 17, 2026Nov 6, 2025Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoff—Aug 2024Apr 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 4.3$17.50
  • Kimi K2 Thinking$11.00
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Grok 4.3, Kimi K2 Thinking or Qwen3.5 Plus?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Grok 4.3 67/100, Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Kimi K2 Thinking 58/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Grok 4.3 for raw capability and Qwen3.5 Plus on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.3, Kimi K2 Thinking or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (median across 10 API providers); Grok 4.3 costs $1.25 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (official xAI API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.90 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Plus versus $1.07 for Kimi K2 Thinking (1.2× as much) and $1.56 for Grok 4.3 (1.7× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Grok 4.3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.3 149.2 (#55 of 148), Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148) and Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0 (#72 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (147.6–150.8 vs 144.6–148.1), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Grok 4.3 88.8%, Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, Kimi K2 Thinking 84.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Grok 4.3 93.3%, Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Kimi K2 Thinking 83.1%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Grok 4.3, Kimi K2 Thinking and Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Grok 4.3 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 4.3 and Qwen3.5 Plus have the largest context windows (1,000,000 and 1,000,000 tokens), against 262,144 for Kimi K2 Thinking. Maximum output per response: Grok 4.3 up to 30,000, Kimi K2 Thinking up to 262,144, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Grok 4.3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Kimi K2 Thinking accepts text; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video. Grok 4.3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Kimi K2 Thinking publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Grok 4.3 and Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Grok 4.3 is the newest, released Apr 17, 2026. Qwen3.5 Plus came out Feb 16, 2026; Kimi K2 Thinking came out Nov 6, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Kimi K2 Thinking Aug 2024, Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 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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