Kimi K3.1 Pro vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Kimi K3.1 Pro by Kimi or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 36.7 points higher (55.1 vs 18.4) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($3117 vs $941; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3.1 Pro when you need intelligence above 18.4, and Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when 18.4 is enough.
| Metric | Kimi K3.1 Pro | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 55.1 | 18.4 | −66.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 66.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,117.31 | $940.97 | −69.8% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 69.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 59.28s | 65.32s | +10.2% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 10.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Kimi K3.1 Pro: 66.6% less intelligence, 69.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 10.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Kimi K3.1 Pro is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Kimi K3.1 ProQwen3.5 397B A17B (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-k3-1-pro/qwen3-5-397b-a17b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/kimi-k3-1-pro/qwen3-5-397b-a17b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill