kimi-k2.6 vs mistral-medium-3-5

Capability for the money

kimi-k2.6 is 1.8× cheaper than mistral-medium-3-5 and scores higher on following instructions (IFBench) and hard reasoning (GPQA Diamond) — there is no case for paying more here.

1. Following instructions

   extraction, classification, sticking to a format

   IFBench
   kimi-k2.676.0%

   mistral-medium-3-568.8%

   kimi-k2.6 +7.2

2. Tool use

   multi-step agent work against real tools

   τ²-bench
   kimi-k2.695.9%

   mistral-medium-3-594.2%

   kimi-k2.6 +1.7

3. Hard reasoning

   graduate-level science and multi-step analysis

   GPQA Diamond
   kimi-k2.691.1%

   mistral-medium-3-574.8%

   kimi-k2.6 +16.3

Averaged over the benchmarks both models sat, kimi-k2.6 returns 51.2 points of pass rate per dollar of blended price against 26.4 — the ratio that decides whether the dearer model earns its rate.

Each figure is a pass rate: the share of that test set the model answered correctly, measured by a third party rather than self-reported by the lab. Rows are different tests of different difficulty, so compare a model against the other model, not one row against the next. No published coding score for one of these models, so that lens is omitted. And a benchmark is not your workload — it narrows the shortlist, it does not pick for you.