Kimi K2.7 Code vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Kimi K2.7 Code by Kimi or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K2.7 Code scores 14.6 points higher (25.8 vs 11.2) but costs 3.0× as much to run the benchmark ($993 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K2.7 Code when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Kimi K2.7 Code | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 25.8 | 11.2 | −56.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 56.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $992.88 | $328.86 | −66.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 66.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 46.75s | 43.21s | −7.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 7.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.95 / $4.00 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Kimi K2.7 Code: 56.6% less intelligence, 66.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Kimi K2.7 Code is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Kimi K2.7 CodeQwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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/kimi-k2-7-code/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/kimi-k2-7-code/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill