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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Kimi K2.5

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

  1. 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

  2. Moonshot AI

    Kimi K2.5

    Released Jan 27, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI148.0
    • Price$0.60 / $3.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Kimi K2.5

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01 — Verdict

Too close to call

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

  • CapabilityKimi K2.5Capabilities Index (ECI): Kimi K2.5 148.0 · Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Kimi K2.5 $1.20 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Kimi K2.5 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Kimi K2.5: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingKimi K2.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusKimi K2.5
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7476
Price25%5246
Inputs & features15%7080
Context window10%6037
Overall100%66/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Kimi K2.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Kimi K2.5Moonshot AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8148.0 (best)
ECI rank#65 of 148#58 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9%87.6% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%92.2% (best)
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—73.8%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%34.3% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40 (best)$0.60
Output$2.40 (best)$3.00
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$0.90 (best)$1.20
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIMedian of 21 providers
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-plus—
API providers1021 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Jan 27, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025Jan 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.

  • Qwen3.5 Plus$8.80
  • Kimi K2.5$12.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

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

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

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Kimi K2.5 costs $0.60 input / $3.00 output per million tokens (median across 21 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 $1.20 for Kimi K2.5 (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Kimi K2.5 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Kimi K2.5 148.0 (#58 of 148) and Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (146.5–149.3 vs 144.6–148.1), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Kimi K2.5 87.6%, Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Kimi K2.5 92.2%, Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%; SimpleQA Verified — Kimi K2.5 34.3%, Qwen3.5 Plus 25.4%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Plus yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Kimi K2.5 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both 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 K2.5. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Kimi K2.5 up to 262,144 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; Kimi K2.5 accepts text, images and video. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

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

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. Kimi K2.5 came out Jan 27, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 2025, Kimi K2.5 Jan 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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