Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 vs Qwen3.5 Plus
Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 56 and 55 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
Moonshot AIKimi K2 Thinking
56/100- ECI145.9
- Price$0.60 / $2.50
- Context262K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507
55/100- ECI143.8
- Price$0.30 / $2.90
- Context262K
- Our pickAlibaba (Qwen)
Qwen3.5 Plus
66/100- ECI146.3
- Price$0.40 / $2.40
- Context1M
Qwen3.5 Plus is our pick
Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Kimi K2 Thinking (56) and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (55). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.3 · Kimi K2 Thinking 145.9 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 143.8
- Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 $0.95 · 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 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 262,144 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.5 PlusKimi K2 Thinking: Text · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507: Text · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingKimi K2 Thinking and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Publishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Kimi K2 Thinking | Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 71 | 69 | 72 |
| Price | 25% | 46 | 49 | 50 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 35 | 35 | 80 |
| Context window | 10% | 37 | 37 | 60 |
| Overall | 100% | 56/100 | 55/100 | 66/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Kimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AI | Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Alibaba (Qwen) | Qwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 145.9 | 143.8 | 146.3 (best) |
| ECI rank | #84 of 165 | #93 of 165 | #78 of 165 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 84.2% | 80.1% | 84.9% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 83.1% | 86.7% (best) | 86.7% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 40.4% (best) | 25.4% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.60 | $0.30 (best) | $0.40 |
| Output | $2.50 | $2.90 | $2.40 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.07 | $0.95 | $0.90 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Over 256K: $0.50 / $3.00 |
| Price source | Median of 15 providers | Median of 11 providers | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 262,144 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 262,144 tokens (best) | 81,920 tokens | 65,536 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | OpenApache 2.0 | Proprietary |
| API model ID | — | — | qwen3.5-plus |
| API providers | 16 (best) | 12 | 13 |
| Released | Nov 6, 2025 | Jul 25, 2025 | Feb 16, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Aug 2024 | — | Apr 2025 |
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
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507$8.80
- Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Kimi K2 Thinking (56) and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (55). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 costs $0.30 input / $2.90 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers); Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.60 input / $2.50 output per million tokens (median across 15 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.90 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Plus versus $0.95 for Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (1.1× as much) and $1.07 for Kimi K2 Thinking (1.2× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.3 (#78 of 165), Kimi K2 Thinking 145.9 (#84 of 165) and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 143.8 (#93 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (143.7–147.6 vs 143.3–147.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, Kimi K2 Thinking 84.2%, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 80.1%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 86.7%, Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Kimi K2 Thinking 83.1%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 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 262,144 for Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2 Thinking up to 262,144, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 up to 81,920, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Kimi K2 Thinking accepts text; Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 accepts text; 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 and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; 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; Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 came out Jul 25, 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 Nov 2, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Kimi K2 Thinking vs GLM-4.7Z.ai (Zhipu) · ECI 143.7
- Kimi K2 Thinking vs Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B A55BNVIDIA · ECI 146.0
- Kimi K2 Thinking vs GPT-5 MiniOpenAI · ECI 145.4
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 vs GLM-4.7Z.ai (Zhipu) · ECI 143.7
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 vs GPT-5 MiniOpenAI · ECI 145.4
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 vs DeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeek · ECI 141.2
