Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Kimi K2 (0905)
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Kimi K2 (0905)
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 19 results on 4 sources that measured both models.
Of the 19 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.
Results as of 14 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-14-7d7cf32c3f6d). See also Alibaba vs Moonshot AI, every model from both labs.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2 (0905)? The short answer
Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 15.3) and costs less.
- Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $1.07 per million tokens, 2.4 times less.
- Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 19.3 against 15.3.
- Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 5 Sep 2025 for Kimi K2 (0905).
- On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does better for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts; Kimi K2 (0905) for writing.
Head to head
Every fact side by side
| Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Kimi K2 (0905) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.16 in · $1.30 out | $0.60 in · $2.50 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.45 | $1.07 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4) | – |
| Intelligence Index | 19.3 | 15.3 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | – | – |
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Released | 24 Feb 2026 (newer) | 5 Sep 2025 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Developer based in | China | China |
Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.
Which is better for what
Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.
Every shared result
Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.
| Measure | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Kimi K2 (0905) |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results | ||
| Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 113 of 387 measured | 1,394 | 1,419 |
| Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 132 of 163 measured | 1,407 | 1,403 |
| Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 134 of 380 measured | 1,403 | 1,404 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 109 · 127 of 244 measured | 19.3 | 15.3 |
| GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 130 of 231 measured | 84.5% | 76.7% |
| Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 107 · 179 of 243 measured | 21.0% | 6.4% |
| UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results | ||
| Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 61 of 230 measured | 42.6think-prefill reasoning | 54.4 |
| Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 129 of 230 measured | 17.0%no reasoning | 22.0% |
| Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 194 of 230 measured | 0.33no reasoning | 0.31 |
| Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results | ||
| Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 94 of 104 measured | 10.5% | 17.9% |
| Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 72 of 104 measured | 99.8% | 98.6% |
Show all 19 results (8 more)
| Measure | Qwen3.5-35B-A3B | Kimi K2 (0905) |
|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results | ||
| Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 119 of 385 measured | 1,342 | 1,381 |
| Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 138 of 338 measured | 1,419 | 1,417 |
| Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 136 of 387 measured | 1,386 | 1,390 |
| Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 133 of 386 measured | 1,363 | 1,382 |
| Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results | ||
| IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 126 of 195 measured | 72.5% | 41.7% |
| Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 100 · 147 of 234 measured | 72.0% | 53.0% |
| Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 84 of 190 measured | 26.5% | 23.5% |
| τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 80 of 193 measured | 89.2% | 73.4% |
Compare them with other models
Quick answers
Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Kimi K2 (0905)?
Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 15.3) and costs less.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2 (0905)?
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $1.07 per million tokens, 2.4 times less.
Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2 (0905)?
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 94 of 200 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 130 for Kimi K2 (0905).
Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2 (0905)?
Kimi K2 (0905) ranks 74 of 189 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 109 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2 (0905)?
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 112 of 153 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 137 for Kimi K2 (0905).
Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Kimi K2 (0905) on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.