Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Kimi K3 (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) 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 5 (High) scores 18.0 points higher (48.1 vs 30.1) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $1190; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 30.1, and Kimi K3 (Low) when 30.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Kimi K3 (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 30.1 | −37.4% Kimi K3 (Low) is 37.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $1,190.42 | −72.5% Kimi K3 (Low) is 72.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 23.65s | 57.21s | +141.9% Kimi K3 (Low) is 141.9% 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 5 (High): 37.4% less intelligence, 72.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 141.9% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) 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 5 (High)Kimi K3 (Low)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-high/kimi-k3-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-high/kimi-k3-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill