Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Kimi K3 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 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 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K3 (Max) scores 15.5 points higher (43.6 vs 28.1) but costs 3.0× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $1218; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 28.1, and Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) when 28.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Kimi K3 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 43.6 | +55.2% Kimi K3 (Max) is 55.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $3,658.07 | +200.3% Kimi K3 (Max) is 3.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.58s | 58.57s | +582.6% Kimi K3 (Max) is 582.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $3.00 / $15.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Kimi K3 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium): 55.2% more intelligence, 200.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 582.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 Sonnet 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-sonnet-5-medium/kimi-k3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/kimi-k3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill