MiMo-V2.6-Pro vs Kimi K3
MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores higher on the Models at Work leaderboard (81 vs 71 out of 100). MiMo-V2.6-Pro is about 4.3× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.54 vs $2.31, one figure an Artificial Analysis estimate). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, MiMo-V2.6-Pro leads 46 to 44.
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro · Xiaomi | Kimi K3 · Moonshot | |
|---|---|---|
| Leaderboard rank | #7 | #16 |
| Score (0–100) | 81 | 71 |
| Tier | Open weights | Open weights |
| Price per 1M tokens | $0.43 in · $0.87 out | $2.31 blended (estimate) |
| Context window | 1M | Not verified |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 46 | 44 |
| Arena Text score | 1480 (rank 26) | — |
| Arena WebDev score | 1629 (rank 19) | — |
| Arena text score | — | 1488 |
| Best for | Self-hosted agentic coding, Cheap frontier-class batch reasoning, Replacing closed mid-tier models | Self-hosting, Open-licence requirements, Arena-style chat quality |
Choose MiMo-V2.6-Pro if…
- you need self-hosted agentic coding
- you need cheap frontier-class batch reasoning
- you need replacing closed mid-tier models
The strongest open-weight model right now and absurdly cheap for what it does. MIT-licensed 1T MoE that lands within a few points of Muse Spark and Grok 4.7. Slow-ish and verbose, so budget for latency and thinking tokens.
Caveats: Overthinks: long, repetitive reasoning traces on simple edits; AA flags it as verbose vs the median model. ~47 tok/s on the first-party API is slow next to Gemini Flash or Haiku-class models. Only 4k Arena votes so far; the rank is still settling.
Choose Kimi K3 if…
- you need self-hosting
- you need open-licence requirements
- you need arena-style chat quality
The highest-placed open-licence model on Arena, and the one most teams have not tried yet.
Caveats: Price is Artificial Analysis' blended figure, not a vendor list price; context not verified from a primary source.
What practitioners say
MiMo-V2.6-Pro: HN (1,130 points) was won over less by scores than by Xiaomi's transparency: a live training dashboard with loss curves, dropped datasets and running cost estimates. Users call it 'incredibly cheap' for Muse-Spark-level benchmarks and say it keeps DeepSeek and GLM 'in check'. Complaints are consistent: 'faster than DeepSeek but still much slower than leading models', and it 'seems to overthink way too much', producing huge reasoning traces for trivial edits. Several recommend it via OpenRouter rather than the Chinese first-party API.
Questions people ask
Which is better, MiMo-V2.6-Pro or Kimi K3?
MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores higher on the Models at Work leaderboard (81 vs 71 out of 100). MiMo-V2.6-Pro is about 4.3× cheaper per blended million tokens ($0.54 vs $2.31, one figure an Artificial Analysis estimate). On Artificial Analysis' independent Intelligence Index, MiMo-V2.6-Pro leads 46 to 44.
When should I choose MiMo-V2.6-Pro over Kimi K3?
Choose MiMo-V2.6-Pro for self-hosted agentic coding, cheap frontier-class batch reasoning, replacing closed mid-tier models. The strongest open-weight model right now and absurdly cheap for what it does. MIT-licensed 1T MoE that lands within a few points of Muse Spark and Grok 4.7. Slow-ish and verbose, so budget for latency and thinking tokens.
When should I choose Kimi K3 over MiMo-V2.6-Pro?
Choose Kimi K3 for self-hosting, open-licence requirements, arena-style chat quality. The highest-placed open-licence model on Arena, and the one most teams have not tried yet.
Which is cheaper, MiMo-V2.6-Pro or Kimi K3?
MiMo-V2.6-Pro costs $0.43 per million input tokens and $0.87 per million output tokens on Xiaomi's list price (MiMo-V2.6-Pro - Artificial Analysis, read Oct 11, 2026). Moonshot does not publish a simple list price for Kimi K3; Artificial Analysis estimates a blended $2.31 per million tokens (three input to one output).
Scores come from the Models at Work leaderboard: Score is 0 to 100 and computed, not typed: 55% independent evals (Artificial Analysis, Arena, Scale SEAL, Epoch, each scaled against its natural floor and the best score in this table, then averaged), 15% blended price on a fixed log scale ($0.05 per million is 100, $60 is 0), 15% practitioner sentiment from Signals and community threads, 15% operational fit (context window, open weights). A missing component drops out and the rest are reweighted. A model with no independent eval yet is provisional and ranks below every measured one. Within three points is a tie. Vendor-published figures are labelled and never counted. Prices are vendor list prices where published; blended figures assume three input tokens per output token.