Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Kimi K3 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Low) 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 11.7 points higher (41.8 vs 30.1) but costs 5.8× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1190; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 30.1, and Kimi K3 (Low) when 30.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Kimi K3 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 30.1 | −28.0% Kimi K3 (Low) is 28.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,190.42 | −82.7% Kimi K3 (Low) is 82.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.99s | 56.42s | +48.5% Kimi K3 (Low) is 48.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Kimi K3 (Low) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 28.0% less intelligence, 82.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 48.5% 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 K3 (Low) 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 K3 (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/kimi-k3-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/kimi-k3-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill