Kimi K3 (max) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Kimi K3 (max) by Kimi or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K3 (max) scores 38.4 points higher (59.7 vs 21.3) but costs 9.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2425 vs $250; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3 (max) when you need intelligence above 21.3, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 21.3 is enough.
| Metric | Kimi K3 (max) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 59.7 | 21.3 | −64.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 64.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,425.11 | $250.18 | −89.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 89.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 66.27s | 4.63s | −93.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 93.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Kimi K3 (max): 64.3% less intelligence, 89.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 93.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Kimi K3 (max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, High Effort) scores 61.50 for $1974.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Kimi K3 (max)Qwen3 Coder NextToday'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/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/kimi-k3/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill