Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Kimi K3 (Max)
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 4.3% more intelligence, 46.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 58.7% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 43.6 | +4.3% Kimi K3 (Max) is 4.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $3,658.07 | −46.8% Kimi K3 (Max) is 46.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.91s | 58.57s | +58.7% Kimi K3 (Max) is 58.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
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 K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Kimi K3 (Max)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-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill