Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) 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 Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 14.8% less intelligence, 124.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 233.4% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 43.6 | −14.8% Kimi K3 (Max) is 14.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,626.81 | $3,658.07 | +124.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 2.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.57s | 58.57s | +233.4% Kimi K3 (Max) is 233.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Kimi K3 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)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-5-5-medium/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-medium/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill