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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3.5 Plus comes out ahead, 66 to 58 and 50 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  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. 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

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    50/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.20 / $6.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 Max
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 Qwen3 Max (50). It leads on price, 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 146.8 · Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0 · Qwen3 Max 142.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Kimi K2 Thinking $1.07 · Qwen3 Max $2.40 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Kimi K2 Thinking 262,144 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 PlusKimi K2 Thinking: Text · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingKimi K2 ThinkingPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightKimi K2 ThinkingQwen3.5 PlusQwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%737468
Price25%485232
Inputs & features15%357025
Context window10%376037
Overall100%58/10066/10050/100
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 Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AIQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.0146.8 (best)142.4
ECI rank#72 of 148#65 of 148 (best)#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.2%84.9% (best)72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics83.1%86.7% (best)73.3%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—25.4%48.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.60$0.40 (best)$1.20
Output$2.50$2.40 (best)$6.00
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$1.07$0.90 (best)$2.40
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 10 providersOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningYesYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model ID—qwen3.5-plusqwen3-max
API providers101016 (best)
ReleasedNov 6, 2025Feb 16, 2026Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoffAug 2024Apr 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
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

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

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

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); Qwen3 Max costs $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba 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 $2.40 for Qwen3 Max (2.7× 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 Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 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%, Qwen3 Max 72.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%, Kimi K2 Thinking 83.1%, Qwen3 Max 73.3%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3 Max 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 Max. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2 Thinking up to 262,144, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Kimi K2 Thinking accepts text; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Qwen3 Max accepts text. 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; Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3 Max is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. Kimi K2 Thinking came out Nov 6, 2025; Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Kimi K2 Thinking Aug 2024, Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Qwen3 Max 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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