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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Kimi K2 Thinking vs Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Plus 66, Qwen3.6 27B 65, Kimi K2 Thinking 58). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  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. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 27B

    Released Apr 22, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.5
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 27B

  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 2 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, Kimi K2 Thinking 58/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 · Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Kimi K2 Thinking $1.07 · Qwen3.6 27B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Kimi K2 Thinking 262,144 · Qwen3.6 27B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.6 27BKimi K2 Thinking: Text · Qwen3.6 27B: Text, Images, Audio, Video · Qwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingKimi K2 Thinking and Qwen3.6 27BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightKimi K2 ThinkingQwen3.6 27BQwen3.5 Plus
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%737474
Price25%484452
Inputs & features15%359070
Context window10%373760
Overall100%58/10065/10066/100
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 Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3.5 Plus specifications side by side
SpecificationKimi K2 ThinkingMoonshot AIQwen3.6 27BAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.0146.5146.8 (best)
ECI rank#72 of 148#68 of 148#65 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.2%85.9% (best)84.9%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—35.1%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics83.1%91.1% (best)86.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——25.4%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.60$0.60$0.40 (best)
Output$2.50$3.60$2.40 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$1.07$1.35$0.90 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 10 providersOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoYesNo
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenProprietary
API model ID—qwen3.6-27bqwen3.5-plus
API providers1027 (best)10
ReleasedNov 6, 2025Apr 22, 2026Feb 16, 2026
Knowledge cutoffAug 2024—Apr 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
  • Qwen3.6 27B$13.20
  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3.5 Plus?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.6 27B 65/100, Kimi K2 Thinking 58/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Kimi K2 Thinking, Qwen3.6 27B 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); Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 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 $1.35 for Qwen3.6 27B (1.5× 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), Qwen3.6 27B 146.5 (#68 of 148) and Kimi K2 Thinking 146.0 (#72 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 144.2–147.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.6 27B 85.9%, Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%, Kimi K2 Thinking 84.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.6 27B 91.1%, 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, Qwen3.6 27B 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 Qwen3.6 27B. Maximum output per response: Kimi K2 Thinking up to 262,144, Qwen3.6 27B up to 65,536, Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Kimi K2 Thinking accepts text; Qwen3.6 27B accepts text, images, audio and video; Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.6 27B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Kimi K2 Thinking and Qwen3.6 27B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.6 27B is the newest, released Apr 22, 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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