Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)
In this head-to-head showdown, MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 is more budget-friendly at $2.85/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.
Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (moonshotai/kimi-k2.5). Preview until a second source matches.
Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (perplexity/sonar-deep-research). Preview until a second source matches.
Speed, cost, and intelligence tradeoffs across the Moonshot lineup
Simulate accuracy gains vs added response time & token cost
Reasoning models “think before answering” by generating internal reasoning tokens. Higher effort improves math, coding, and logic accuracy, but increases response delay and token costs.
Single model data
No latency data
$2.8499999999999996 / 1M output
Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.
Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.
Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.
Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy
Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness
Cost per million tokens and max context window length
| Benchmark | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 | Perplexity: Sonar Deep Research | Advantage Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Preference Elo | — | — | |
| Coding Elo | — | — | |
| LiveBench | — | — | |
| SWE-bench | — | — | |
| GPQA Diamond | — | — | |
| Time to first token | — | — | |
| Output speed | 72 tok/s | — | — |
| Input price | $0.57/1M | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 (+$1.43/1M) | |
| Output price | $2.85/1M | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 (+$5.15/1M) | |
| Context window | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 (+134k) |
Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 is estimated to save $127.30/month ($1,528/year).
Need SWE-bench on both sides.
Lower output list price ($2.85/1M).
Need TTFT on both sides.
Larger window (262k).
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.
| Target Workload | Recommended Pick | Evaluation Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Repo / coding agents | insufficient data | Need SWE-bench on both sides. |
| High-volume chat | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 | Lower output list price ($2.85/1M). |
| Voice / low-latency UI | insufficient data | Need TTFT on both sides. |
| Long-document RAG | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 | Larger window (262k). |
| Screenshots / vision | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 | MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.5 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog. |
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Verified head-to-head card
