Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Kimi K3 (Max) by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium)
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 2.7% less intelligence, 33.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 380.1% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 43.6 | −2.7% Kimi K3 (Max) is 2.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $3,658.07 | +33.9% Kimi K3 (Max) is 33.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 63.08s | +380.1% Kimi K3 (Max) is 380.1% 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 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- 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 (Medium)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-medium/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill