Model comparison

Kimi K2.6 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Data verified July 23, 2026

Head-to-head evidence from 20 shared benchmark results across 6 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

Kimi K2.6

Moonshot AI

56.79/100

Margin

0.2pts

winning →

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Alibaba

56.97/100

2 category wins1 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Kimi K2.6 #74 (Estimated); Qwen3.5-35B-A3B #72 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Kimi K2.6 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B share 20 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 31 results are unique to Kimi K2.6; 8 to Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Updated July 23, 2026

Shared results: 20
Kimi K2.6 only: 31
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only: 8
Comparable categories: 3 / 8

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Kimi K2.6 only becomes the better choice if agentic is the priority.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 20 shared benchmark results across 6 evidence categories; 3 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 56.97 versus 56.79. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 81.6 against 42.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 66.7% to 40.5%. Kimi K2.6 does hit back in agentic, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Kimi K2.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.95 input / $4.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 256K for Kimi K2.6.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Kimi K2.6 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Category	Kimi K2.6	Δ	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
Knowledge	Kimi K2.642.2	Margin→ 39.4	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B81.6
Agentic	Kimi K2.673.5	Margin← 22.5	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B51.0
Coding	Kimi K2.664.4	Margin← 3.8	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B60.6
Reasoning	Kimi K2.6Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B59.0
Math	Kimi K2.667.1	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.5-35B-A3BNot measured
Multilingual	Kimi K2.6Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B81.0
Multimodal	Kimi K2.679.8	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.5-35B-A3BNot measured
Inst. Following	Kimi K2.6Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B91.9

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

A · Kimi K2.6B · Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

Terminal-Bench 2.0
Agentic
Source ↗
A 66.7%B 40.5%
Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 26.2
Terminal-Bench 2.0: Kimi K2.6 scored 66.7%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 40.5%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.
BrowseComp
Agentic
Source ↗
A 83.2%B 61%
Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 22.2
BrowseComp: Kimi K2.6 scored 83.2%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 61%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.
OSWorld-Verified
Agentic
Source ↗
A 73.1%B 54.5%
Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 18.6
OSWorld-Verified: Kimi K2.6 scored 73.1%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 54.5%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.
SWE-bench Verified
Coding
Source ↗
A 80.2%B 69.2%
Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 11
SWE-bench Verified: Kimi K2.6 scored 80.2%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 69.2%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.
GPQA
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 90.5%B 84.2%
Winner: Kimi K2.6Δ 6.3
GPQA: Kimi K2.6 scored 90.5%; Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scored 84.2%. Kimi K2.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

Metric	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens	Kimi K2.6$0.95 input / $4 output	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B$0 input / $0 output	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per second	Kimi K2.6Not available	Qwen3.5-35B-A3BNot available	A complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first token	Kimi K2.6Not available	Qwen3.5-35B-A3BNot available	A complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokens	Kimi K2.6256K	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B262K	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticKimi K2.6 wins

17 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source	66.7%	40.5%	Kimi K2.6 leads
BrowseCompSource	83.2%	61%	Kimi K2.6 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource	73.1%	54.5%	Kimi K2.6 leads
ToolathlonSource	50%	—	Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource	55.9%	—	Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource	62.3%	—	Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource	92.5%	—	Not comparable
WideResearchSource	80.8%	—	Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource	30.3%	—	Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource	95.9%	89.2%	Kimi K2.6 leads
GDPval-AASource	34.5%	—	Not comparable
GDPval-AASource	1189	—	Not comparable
APEX-Agents-AASource	28.5%	—	Not comparable
Gert LabsSource	56.82%	28.96%	Kimi K2.6 leads
ResearchClawBenchSource	18.0%	—	Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source	4.6%	—	Not comparable
terminalBenchHardSource	43.9%	—	Not comparable

CodingKimi K2.6 wins

11 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
SWE-bench VerifiedSource	80.2%	69.2%	Kimi K2.6 leads
LiveCodeBench v6Source	89.6%	—	Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource	58.6%	—	Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource	76.7%	—	Not comparable
SciCodeSource	52.2%	—	Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source	66.7%	—	Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource	37.89%	—	Not comparable
cursorBench31Source	47.6%	—	Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource	61.8%	—	Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource	53.5%	37.7%	Kimi K2.6 leads
SWE-RebenchSource	—	53.7%	Not comparable

Reasoning

3 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
AA-LCRSource	69.7%	62.7%	Kimi K2.6 leads
CritPtSource	8.0%	0.9%	Kimi K2.6 leads
LongBench v2Source	—	59%	Not comparable

KnowledgeQwen3.5-35B-A3B wins

11 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
GPQASource	90.5%	84.2%	Kimi K2.6 leads
GPQA-DSource	90.5%	—	Not comparable
HLESource	34.7%	—	Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource	44.2%	29.3%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource	91.1%	84.5%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-HLESource	35.9%	19.7%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource	6.4%	-46.4%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource	32.8%	20.5%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource	39.3%	84.0%	Kimi K2.6 leads
MMLU-ProSource	—	85.3%	Not comparable
SuperGPQASource	—	63.4%	Not comparable

Math

5 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
AIME26Source	96.4%	—	Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source	92.7%	—	Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource	86.0%	—	Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source	38.966%	—	Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source	14.580%	—	Not comparable

Multilingual

1 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
MMLU-ProXSource	—	81%	Not comparable

Multimodal

9 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
MMMU-ProSource	79.4%	—	Not comparable
MMMU-Pro w/ PythonSource	80.1%	—	Not comparable
CharXivSource	80.4%	—	Not comparable
MathVisionSource	87.4%	83.9%	Kimi K2.6 leads
V*Source	96.9%	92.7%	Kimi K2.6 leads
AA-MMMU-ProSource	79.4%	72.7%	Kimi K2.6 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource	1306	—	Not comparable
MMMUSource	—	81.4%	Not comparable
MMVUSource	—	72.3%	Not comparable

Inst. Following

2 benchmarks

Benchmark	Kimi K2.6	Qwen3.5-35B-A3B	Result
AA-IFBenchSource	76.0%	72.5%	Kimi K2.6 leads
IFEvalSource	—	91.9%	Not comparable

Frequently Asked Questions (4)

Which is better, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 56.97 to 56.79. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 66.7% and 40.5%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 81.6 versus 42.2. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Kimi K2.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 64.4 versus 60.6. Inside this category, AA-SciCode is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Kimi K2.6 or Qwen3.5-35B-A3B?

Kimi K2.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.5 versus 51. Inside this category, Gert Labs is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

Kimi K2.6

API / mo$3,713

Self-host / mo$18,221

Break-even326M/day

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B

API / mo$0

Self-host / moNot listed

Break-even—

Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.

Model the full break-even

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