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

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

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
Moonshot AIKimi K2.6 Released 20 Apr 2026 · $0.95 in · $4.00 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 3Kimi K2.6 wins 19

Of the 22 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Moonshot AI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2.6? The short answer

Pick Kimi K2.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 3.8 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $1.71 per million tokens, 3.8 times less.
  • Kimi K2.6 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 27.0 against 19.3.
  • Kimi K2.6 is newer: released 20 Apr 2026, against 24 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Kimi K2.6 does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
27.0
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$1.71
262,144
Context window, tokens
262,144

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BKimi K2.6
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$0.95 in · $4.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$1.71
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$0.96 (Inceptron, INT4)
Cached input, per million–$0.16 cached input
Intelligence Index19.327.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Released24 Feb 202620 Apr 2026 (newer)
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inChinaChina

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.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 116 of 164 65 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 43 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 50 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 35 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 152 84 of 152

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.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BKimi K2.6
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 50 of 387 measured 1,394 1,461
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 45 of 163 measured 1,407 1,456
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 59 of 380 measured 1,403 1,455
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 62 of 243 measured 19.3 27.0
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 31 of 231 measured 84.5% 91.1%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 51 of 242 measured 21.0% 37.5%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 30 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 64.4thinking reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 91 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 18.0%thinking reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 108 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.35thinking reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 68 of 104 measured 10.5% 10.8%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 41 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.7%
Show all 22 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BKimi K2.6
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 58 of 385 measured 1,342 1,433
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 32 of 338 measured 1,419 1,503
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 47 of 387 measured 1,386 1,456
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 58 of 386 measured 1,363 1,441
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 38 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 65.9%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 42 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 23.3%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 37 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 61.8
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 18 of 195 measured 72.5% 76.0%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 31 of 233 measured 72.0% 81.0%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 23 of 190 measured 26.5% 43.9%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 12 of 193 measured 89.2% 95.9%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Kimi K2.6?

Pick Kimi K2.6 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 27.0 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 3.8 times less per token.

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

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $1.71 per million tokens, 3.8 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2.6?

Kimi K2.6 ranks 65 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 116 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

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

Kimi K2.6 ranks 50 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 92 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

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

Kimi K2.6 ranks 35 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 108 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Kimi K2.6?

Kimi K2.6 ranks 84 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 112 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Kimi K2.6 on your own prompt

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