The Known Good Updated 29 Jul 2026
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ·DeepSeek vs Moonshot AI

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro vs MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — head-to-head comparison

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro profile MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 profile All comparisons
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro — DeepSeek
Quality
#6 of 62
93based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Known Good Index
Speed
#184 of 317
43.7
Output tokens per second
Price
#150 of 370
$0.54
Blended per 1M tokens
In $0.43 · Out $0.87
Cache hit price
#13 of 238
$0.004
per 1M tokens (−99%)
Context
#25 of 375
1.05M
tokens (~1,600 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 V4 Pro scores 93 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 scores 93, which puts them level. They share 3 published evaluations, with DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro ahead on 2 and MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 ahead on 1.

Blended pricing is $0.54 per 1M tokens for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro and $1.16 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 — DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro is about 2.1× cheaper.

Throughput is 44 tokens per second for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro and 59 for MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6, with time to first token at 1.9s and 1.4s. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro accepts 1.05M tokens of context against 262k.

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted); MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 is open weights under Open weights (unrestricted). 27 tracked hosts serve one or both, and 14 serve both.

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

At a glance
MetricDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 93 based on 3 of 7 evaluations 93 based on 3 of 7 evaluations
Blended $/1M $0.54 $1.16
Output tok/s 44 59
Context window 1.05M 262k
Providers 19 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 V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Known Good Index 93 93
Mathematics Index 97 96
Agentic Index 89 87
Openness Index 60 60
The Known Good

Quality Breakdown

Every evaluation both models report a published score for

Evaluations both models report

Bar = DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro · marker = MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 · scores ingested from Epoch AI (CC-BY 4.0)

GPQA Diamond90 / 91
Mock AIME 2024–2597 / 96
SWE-bench Verified78 / 77

Right-hand figures read DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro / MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6. DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro leads on 2 of 3, MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 on 1.

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 V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Text Arena 1,450 1,455
Text Arena (style controlled) 1,457 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 V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Input $/1M $0.43 $0.65
Output $/1M $0.87 $2.72
Blended $/1M $0.54 $1.16
Cache read $/1M $0.004 $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 V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Context window 1.05M 262k
Max output tokens 384k 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 V4 ProMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6
Output tokens/s 44 59
Time to first token 1.9s 1.4s
The Known Good

Providers

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

27 hosts · 14 serve both
Full provider benchmarks →
Provider DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro blendedDeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Pro tok/s MoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 blendedMoonshotAI: Kimi K2.6 tok/s
BaseTen $2.17 110 $1.71 127
Parasail $2.17 65 $1.44 128
Cloudflare $2.17 64 $1.71 56
Novita $1.46 62 $1.45 31
Venice $2.06 55 $1.44 36
Fireworks $2.17 53 $1.71 86
DeepInfra $1.62 51 $1.44 38
Alibaba · first party $2.01 50 — —
GMICloud $0.85 48 — —
Together $2.17 45 $2.02 138
SiliconFlow $1.91 41 $1.43 34
CoreWeave $2.17 40 $1.34 135
DeepSeek · first party $0.54 40 — —
Baidu · first party $0.78 38 $1.16 42
StreamLake $0.84 38 $1.54 31
Wafer $1.50 28 — —
AtlasCloud $2.10 25 $1.71 34
DigitalOcean $1.74 8 $1.37 51
Ionstream $1.41 5 — —
Decart — — $1.34 76
ModelRun — — $1.38 76
Inceptron — — $1.30 52
Crusoe — — $1.40 50
Phala — — $1.97 42
Chutes — — $1.37 42
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 →