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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

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

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) comes out ahead, 68 to 65 and 54 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. 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

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview

    Released Apr 20, 2026

    54/100
    • ECI149.2
    • Price$1.30 / $7.80
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 Max Preview
  3. 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)
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 Qwen3.6 Max Preview (54). It leads on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 152.0 · Kimi K2.6 151.1 · Qwen3.6 Max Preview 149.2
  • Lowest priceGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) $1.56 · Kimi K2.6 $1.71 · Qwen3.6 Max Preview $2.92 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 1,000,000 · Kimi K2.6 262,144 · Qwen3.6 Max Preview 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsKimi K2.6 and Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)Kimi K2.6: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Text · Grok 4.20 (Reasoning): Text, Images, PDFs
  • Self-hostingKimi K2.6Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightKimi K2.6Qwen3.6 Max PreviewGrok 4.20 (Reasoning)
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%797781
Price25%392841
Inputs & features15%803580
Context window10%373760
Overall100%65/10054/10068/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) specifications side by side
SpecificationKimi K2.6Moonshot AIQwen3.6 Max PreviewAlibaba (Qwen)Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)xAI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)151.1149.2152.0 (best)
ECI rank#45 of 148#54 of 148#41 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions90.8% (best)87.4%89.3%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics57.2% (best)—44.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics96.1% (best)91.1%92.2%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues76.7%76.7%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions34.9%52.0% (best)30.2%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.95 (best)$1.30$1.25
Output$4.00$7.80$2.50 (best)
Cached input$0.16$0.13 (best)$0.20
Blended (3:1)$1.71$2.92$1.56 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateOver 200K: $2.50 / $5.00
Price sourceOfficial Moonshot AI APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial xAI API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens30,000 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesNoYes
PDFsNoNoYes
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model IDkimi-k2.6qwen3.6-max-previewgrok-4.20-0309-reasoning
API providers46 (best)1011
ReleasedApr 21, 2026Apr 20, 2026Mar 9, 2026
Knowledge cutoffJan 2025Apr 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.

  • Kimi K2.6$17.50
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview$28.60
  • Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)$17.50
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) is the better all-round choice, scoring 68/100 against Kimi K2.6 (65) and Qwen3.6 Max Preview (54). It leads on price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

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

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); Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs $1.30 input / $7.80 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 $2.92 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview (1.9× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 152.0 (#41 of 148), Kimi K2.6 151.1 (#45 of 148) and Qwen3.6 Max Preview 149.2 (#54 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (149.3–154.4 vs 149.1–152.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Kimi K2.6 90.8%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 89.3%, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 87.4%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Kimi K2.6 96.1%, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 92.2%, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 91.1%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3.6 Max Preview 52.0%, 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, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) 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) has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Kimi K2.6 and 262,144 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2.6 up to 262,144, Qwen3.6 Max Preview up to 65,536, Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) up to 30,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

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

Are any of these open source?

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

Which is newer?

Kimi K2.6 is the newest, released Apr 21, 2026. Qwen3.6 Max Preview came out Apr 20, 2026; Grok 4.20 (Reasoning) came out Mar 9, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Kimi K2.6 Jan 2025, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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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