Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 14.8 points higher (41.8 vs 27.0) but costs 4.5× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1528; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 27.0, and Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) when 27.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 27.0 | −35.4% Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) is 35.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,528.20 | −77.8% Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) is 77.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.90s | 56.90s | +50.1% Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) is 50.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.95 / $4.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 35.4% less intelligence, 77.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 50.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Kimi K2.6 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/kimi-k2-6 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/kimi-k2-6?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill