The Known Good Updated 29 Jul 2026
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ·DeepSeek vs Moonshot AI

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — head-to-head comparison

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 profile MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 profile All comparisons
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 — DeepSeek
Quality
#38 of 62
64based on 4 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#272 of 317
24.6
Output tokens per second
Price
#140 of 370
$0.48
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.27 · Out $1.12
Cache hit price
#141 of 238
$0.14
per 1M tokens (−50%)
Context
#254 of 375
164k
tokens (~300 pages)
MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — Moonshot AI
Quality
#7 of 62
93based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#122 of 317
58.8
Output tokens per second
Price
#225 of 370
$1.16
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.65 · Out $2.72
Cache hit price
#119 of 238
$0.11
per 1M tokens (−83%)
Context
#199 of 375
262k
tokens (~400 pages)
Summary

On the Known Good Index, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 scores 64 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 scores 93 — a 29-point lead for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6. They share 2 published evaluations, with DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 ahead on 0 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ahead on 2.

Blended pricing is $0.48 per 1M tokens for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 and $1.16 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 is about 2.4× cheaper.

Throughput is 25 tokens per second for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 and 59 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6, with time to first token at 1.2s and 1.4s. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 accepts 164k tokens of context against 262k.

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 is open weights; MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted). 22 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 4 serve both.

Generated from tracked data on 29 Jul 2026 · how these comparisons are computed →

At a glance
MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 64 based on 4 of 7 evaluations 93 based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.48 $1.16
Output tok/s 25 59
Context window 164k 262k
Providers 4 22
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Quality

Known Good Index and the capability indices, side by side

Index scores

Each index is min-max normalised across tracked models and scaled 0–100 from published evaluations. We do not run these evaluations.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 64 93
Mathematics Index 57 96
Reasoning Index 65
Agentic Index 87
Openness Index 100 60
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 · marker = MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond68 / 91
Mock AIME 2024–2538 / 96

Right-hand figures read DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 / MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 leads on 0 of 2, MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 on 2.

The Known Good

Arena Elo

Human preference rating from blind pairwise votes

Arena ratings

Elo from blind pairwise votes, ingested from Arena. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Text Arena 1,375 1,455
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,395 1,461
The Known Good

Price & Cost

Published API pricing by token type

Published pricing

USD per 1M tokens. Blended is a 3:1 input:output mix. Live from OpenRouter, cross-checked against models.dev. Lower is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Input $/1M $0.27 $0.65
Output $/1M $1.12 $2.72
Blended $/1M $0.48 $1.16
Cache read $/1M $0.135 $0.109
The Known Good
We publish blended price rather than cost-per-task. Cost-per-task requires token counts from an evaluation suite we do not run. Blended price is computed from published rates and is fully reproducible — see the pricing methodology.

Context Window

Maximum input accepted and maximum output emitted

Context and output limits

Provider-declared limits, from metadata via models.dev and OpenRouter. Higher is better.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Context window 164k 262k
Max output tokens 66k 262k
The Known Good

Speed & Latency

Median throughput and time to first token across hosting providers

Output speedTime to first token
Throughput and latency

Medians across all tracked providers, derived from OpenRouter endpoint telemetry.

MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Output tokens/s 25 59
Time to first token 1.2s 1.4s
The Known Good

Providers

Which hosts serve each model, and at what price and speed

22 hosts · 4 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 blendedDeepSeek: DeepSeek V3 0324 tok/s MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 blendedMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 tok/s
Crusoe $0.75 33 $1.40 50
Novita $0.48 29 $1.45 31
DeepInfra $0.41 21 $1.44 38
SiliconFlow $0.44 17 $1.43 34
Together $2.02 138
CoreWeave $1.34 135
Parasail $1.44 128
BaseTen $1.71 127
Fireworks $1.71 86
Decart $1.34 76
ModelRun $1.38 76
Cloudflare $1.71 56
Inceptron $1.30 52
DigitalOcean $1.37 51
Phala $1.97 42
Baidu · first party $1.16 42
Chutes $1.37 42
Venice $1.44 36
AtlasCloud $1.71 34
StreamLake $1.54 31
Moonshot AI · first party $1.71 23
Sail Research $1.75 6

Per-host pricing and telemetry from OpenRouter. A dash means that host does not serve that model.

The Known Good
Sources for this page
Pricing & providers — OpenRouter Metadata — models.dev Benchmarks — Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)Elo — Arena Full attribution →