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 2026-10-10.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Kimi K3 (Max) scores 34.4 points higher (43.6 vs 9.2) but costs 5.5× as much to run the benchmark ($3658 vs $663; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Kimi K3 (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Kimi K3 (Max) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 43.6 | 9.2 | −78.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 78.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $3,658.07 | $662.85 | −81.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 81.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 67.37s | 7.71s | −88.6% Qwen3 Coder Next is 88.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.50 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Kimi K3 (Max): 78.9% less intelligence, 81.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 88.6% 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 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
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