Compare / Alibaba vs Moonshot AI

AI labs compared · October 2026

Alibaba vs Moonshot AI: which AI lab is ahead?

Each lab's best model on sale goes head to head on every kind of work we measure, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. 34 models in all; a lab is only as good as the model you would actually pick from it.

27 models on sale with our resultsAlibaba Best: Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · newest: Qwen3.8-27B

7 models on sale with our resultsMoonshot AI Best: Kimi K3 · newest: Kimi K3

Alibaba wins 3Moonshot AI wins 5

Kinds of work led by each lab's best model there, of the 8 both are measured on.

Results as of 8 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-08-4199ce0620fe). Models on sale means listed on OpenRouter today.

Alibaba or Moonshot AI? The short answer

Moonshot AI is ahead: its best models beat Alibaba's in 5 of the 8 kinds of work both are measured on; Alibaba leads in 3.

Pick Alibaba for agents and tool use, professional work and sticking to the facts.
Pick Moonshot AI for product listings, decks from an analysis, marketing planning, reasoning and knowledge and writing.
On our overall leaderboard, Kimi K3 is #10 (50 of 100) and Qwen3.8-Max (0902) is #12 (48).
Prices start at $0.11 per million tokens for Alibaba (Qwen3.5-9B) and $1.00 for Moonshot AI (Kimi K2 (0711)).

Head to head

48Qwen3.8-Max (0902)

Best Spring Prompt overall score

50Kimi K3

45.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902)

Best Intelligence Index

43.6Kimi K3

$3.00Qwen3.8-Max (0902)

Flagship price, per million tokens

$6.00Kimi K3

$0.11Qwen3.5-9B

Cheapest model, per million tokens

$1.00Kimi K2 (0711)

Models on sale with our results

Each line names the model behind the number. Prices are blended, three input tokens to one output, at the developer's list price where we have read it; see every model's price. Intelligence Index from Artificial Analysis; overall score from our leaderboard.

Which lab is better for what

For each kind of work, each lab's best model there and its rank among every model on sale. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live

17 of 20Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 13 of 20Kimi K3

Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is

11 of 19Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 8 of 19Kimi K3

Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending

14 of 19Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 8 of 19Kimi K3

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls

7 of 164Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 19 of 164Kimi K2 (0711)

Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects

18 of 51Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 24 of 51Kimi K3

Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge

17 of 198Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 15 of 198Kimi K3

WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality

16 of 188Qwen3.8-Max (0902) 11 of 188Kimi K3

Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers

6 of 152Qwen3-8B 28 of 152Kimi K3

Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess)

not measured 19 of 22Kimi K3

Every model, by intelligence and price

Each dot is a model on sale with an Intelligence Index from Artificial Analysis. Up is smarter; left is cheaper. Hover or tap a dot for its name.

AlibabaMoonshot AI

On our overall leaderboard

The 2 of their models we rank overall: one score out of 100 across everything we publish (how the score works). Only models with enough of our own results are ranked.

#10Kimi K350
#12Qwen3.8-Max (0902)48

Benchmark by benchmark

The headline result of every benchmark both labs have models on: each lab's best model and its rank among the models on sale. Green marks the better rank.

Measure	Alibaba	Moonshot AI
Agents and tool use
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 · Overall accuracy · BFCL% correct, higher is better	52.2%Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 · 13 of 38	59.1%Kimi K2 (0711) · 6 of 38
OpenHands Index · Average% resolved, higher is better	52.9%Qwen3.6-Plus · 16 of 33	57.1%Kimi K2.6 · 14 of 33
Artificial Analysis · Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better	38.9%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 11 of 105	12.6%Kimi K3 · 29 of 105
Artificial Analysis · Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better	88.8%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 5 of 115	85.0%Kimi K3 · 11 of 115
Artificial Analysis · τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better	48.0%Qwen3.8-27B · 5 of 113	46.0%Kimi K3 · 9 of 113
Vending-Bench 2 · Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better	$5,115Qwen3.6-Plus · 24 of 56	$6,205Kimi K2.6 · 15 of 56
Decks from an analysis
DeckBench · Deck ratingrating, higher is better	1,100Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 11 of 19	1,229Kimi K3 · 8 of 19
Marketing planning
ROASBench · Overall scorescore out of 100, higher is better	25.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 14 of 19	44.1Kimi K3 · 8 of 19
Product listings
CatalogBench · Reliably publish-ready% of products, higher is better	28.6%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 20	41.1%Kimi K3 · 9 of 20
CatalogBench · Reliably publish-ready · sales brief% of products, higher is better	0.0%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 18 of 20	1.8%Kimi K3 · 16 of 20
Professional work
APEX-Agents · Tasks passed% of tasks, higher is better	24.9%Qwen3.5-397B-A17B · 36 of 37	50.6%Kimi K3 · 21 of 37
GDP.pdf · Professional document tasks% of rubric, higher is better	23.2%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 31	19.0%Kimi K3 · 17 of 31
Reasoning and knowledge
Artificial Analysis · Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better	45.4Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 13 of 198	43.6Kimi K3 · 16 of 198
Artificial Analysis · Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better	43.1%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 23 of 197	46.9%Kimi K3 · 16 of 197
Artificial Analysis · GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better	92.8%Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 15 of 187	93.5%Kimi K3 · 10 of 187
Sticking to the facts
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better	4.8%Qwen3-8B · 5 of 79	10.8%Kimi K2.6 · 52 of 79
Arena (formerly LMArena) · Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better	1,472Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 18 of 113	1,472Kimi K3 · 16 of 113
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · Correct answers% of questions, higher is better	55.8%Qwen3.7-Max · 18 of 73	50.6%Kimi K3 · 23 of 73
Writing
Arena (formerly LMArena) · Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better	1,482Qwen3.8-Max (0902) · 17 of 166	1,488Kimi K3 · 11 of 166
UGI Leaderboard · Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better	58.2Qwen3.6-Plus · 38 of 138	64.4Kimi K2.6 · 25 of 138

Their models, one against one

Qwen3.8-Max (0902) vs Kimi K3Benchmarks, price and which to pick

Quick answers

Is Alibaba or Moonshot AI better?

Moonshot AI is ahead: its best models beat Alibaba's in 5 of the 8 kinds of work both are measured on; Alibaba leads in 3.

What is Alibaba's best model?

Qwen3.8-Max (0902): #12 on the Spring Prompt overall leaderboard and 45.4 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

What is Moonshot AI's best model?

Kimi K3: #10 on the Spring Prompt overall leaderboard and 43.6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Alibaba or Moonshot AI?

Alibaba: its best model there, Qwen3.8-Max (0902), ranks 7 of 164 models on sale, against 19 for Moonshot AI's Kimi K2 (0711).

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Alibaba or Moonshot AI?

Moonshot AI: its best model there, Kimi K3, ranks 15 of 198 models on sale, against 17 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max (0902).

Which is better for writing, Alibaba or Moonshot AI?

Moonshot AI: its best model there, Kimi K3, ranks 11 of 188 models on sale, against 16 for Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max (0902).

Which is cheaper, Alibaba or Moonshot AI?

Alibaba's cheapest model with results, Qwen3.5-9B, costs $0.11 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $1.00 for Kimi K2 (0711) from Moonshot AI.

Other labs compared

Which model is best for your product?

Benchmarks aren't your data. We test the models from Alibaba, Moonshot AI and the rest on your own tasks, with the cost of every answer.

Talk to us See the leaderboard