ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Kimi K2 Thinking vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 58 and 53 on our weighted score, though Mistral Medium 3 is 11% cheaper per token.

  1. 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

  2. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3

    Released May 7, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI134.1
    • Price$0.40 / $2.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3
  3. Our pick

    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

Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Kimi K2 Thinking (58) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Medium 3 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 · Qwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Kimi K2 Thinking $1.07 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Kimi K2 Thinking 262,144 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 PlusKimi K2 Thinking: Text · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingKimi K2 ThinkingPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightKimi K2 ThinkingMistral Medium 3Qwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%735874
Price25%485452
Inputs & features15%355070
Context window10%372460
Overall100%58/10053/10066/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Kimi K2 Thinking vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5 Plus specifications side by side
SpecificationKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AIMistral Medium 3Mistral AIQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.0134.1146.8 (best)
ECI rank#72 of 148#117 of 148#65 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.2%59.5%84.9% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics83.1%32.2%86.7% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——25.4%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.60$0.40 (best)$0.40 (best)
Output$2.50$2.00 (best)$2.40
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$1.07$0.80 (best)$0.90
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 10 providersOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens131,072 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output262,144 tokens (best)131,072 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoYes
ReasoningYesNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model ID—mistral-medium-2505qwen3.5-plus
API providers10 (best)510 (best)
ReleasedNov 6, 2025May 7, 2025Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoffAug 2024May 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 Thinking$11.00
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Kimi K2 Thinking, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Kimi K2 Thinking (58) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Medium 3 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Mistral Medium 3 is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Qwen3.5 Plus costs $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). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.80 per million tokens for Mistral Medium 3 versus $0.90 for Qwen3.5 Plus (1.1× as much) and $1.07 for Kimi K2 Thinking (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148), Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0 (#72 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 143.4–147.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, Kimi K2 Thinking 84.2%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Kimi K2 Thinking 83.1%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Kimi K2 Thinking, Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus 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?

Qwen3.5 Plus has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Kimi K2 Thinking and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2 Thinking up to 262,144, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Kimi K2 Thinking accepts text; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 Plus handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Kimi K2 Thinking publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. Kimi K2 Thinking came out Nov 6, 2025; Mistral Medium 3 came out May 7, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Kimi K2 Thinking Aug 2024, Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, 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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