Kimi k3

The depth of memory, China's Qilin. Overwhelming the world with a vast 2-million-token context and evolved reasoning capabilities - Detailed Analysis Report

Last Surveyed: January 31, 2026

Kimi k3

Moonshot AI | Released: December 2025

💰 Usage Fee (API In) ¥15 / 1M tokens
🔗 WEB Chat FREE (Daily limits apply)
🆓 Free Tier Available (Usable via Web version)
⚡ Context Window 2,000,000 tokens
💻 Specialization Parallel Research / UI Coding
👁️ Unique Features Agent Swarm / Canvas
🤝 Architecture Long-context Sparse MoE

👤 AI Persona

Kimi Persona

"The young commander of the lunar base"

⭐ Overall Rating

✨ Unique Features

  • Agent Swarm: Runs up to 100 agents in parallel to divide and conquer complex research and data processing. Achieves research speeds that transcend human intelligence.
  • Coding with Vision: Reads UI screenshots or hand-drawn wireframes and instantly converts them into high-precision React/Vue code. A savior for frontend development.
  • MoonViT Encoder: Achieves SOTA-level performance in fine-grained OCR and spatial awareness through a proprietary image processing engine.
  • 2M Long Context: Processes 2 million tokens at once, equivalent to several hundred paperback books. Ideal for "treasure hunting" in massive logs and document sets.

📈 Benchmark Comparison

🆚 vs GPT-5.2

API CostKimi is approx. 1/8
Visual ImplementationKimi Leads
Mathematical LogicGPT-5.2 Wins Decisively

🆚 vs DeepSeek V3

Pure LogicDeepSeek is Higher
Agent CapabilityKimi (Swarm) is Powerful
Cost PerformanceNear Equal

📝 Executive Summary

Kimi k3 (the perfected form of the k2.5 series) is a state-of-the-art "Agent-specialized" model representing 2026.

Its greatest feature lies in the "Agent Swarm" technology, which commands and coordinates multiple AIs to achieve overwhelming throughput, completing large-scale research and complex workflows that would take a single AI several hours in just minutes. Its ability to generate code from visual information is particularly remarkable, showcasing cost-performance that rivals paid models as a "combat weapon" in web production and data analysis.

💰 Pricing Details

  • API Usage: An exceptional price of $0.30 / 1M tokens (Input). Ideal for large-scale batch processing.
  • Web Chat: General users can use the latest reasoning features for free on the website.
  • Self-hosting: An open-weight version is available, but high VRAM capacity is recommended to fully utilize the Swarm features.

🎯 Key Benchmark Results

Metric Kimi k3 Evaluation
HLE-Full (Agentic) 50.2% SOTA (Industry #1)
VideoMMU (Vision) 86.6% Highest Rating
AIME 2025 (Math) 96.1% Excellent (Top 5)

✅ Pros and Cons

👍 Pros

  • Unprecedented parallel processing capability with "Agent Swarm" that leaves humans behind.
  • Practical vision-coding performance that instantly generates working code from design comps.
  • Ultra-low API pricing. Build large-scale automation systems without worrying about costs.

👎 Cons

  • Still yields to GPT-5 and DeepSeek in pure mathematical proofs and advanced logic puzzles.
  • Mechanistic nature makes it unsuitable for "roleplay" that maintains human-like emotions or character.
  • Limited technical disclosure has drawn criticism from those seeking full "openness."

💭 Reddit User Sentiment

Positive Reviews 4.0 / 5.0
Source: Analysis of 250 posts from r/LocalLLaMA, r/DataScience

Positive Comments

"The accuracy of exporting React components directly from screen captures is almost scary."
"I finished a simultaneous research and summary of over 100 sites in minutes using Agent Swarm. My productivity increased tenfold."

Negative Comments

"I tried running it locally after quantization, but the 1T MoE wall is thick. Massive resources are required for full performance."
"The personality is too loyal to commands and lacks interest. While a smart tool, GPT is more fun as a conversation partner."

🎯 Recommended Use Cases

  1. Rapid Web Frontend Construction - Mass-producing components from design images.
  2. Large-scale Web Scraping & Analysis - Market research utilizing parallel operations.
  3. Cross-search of Ultra-large Technical Documents - Building a knowledge base utilizing the 2M context.

📊 Conclusion & Overall Rating

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.0/5.0)

Kimi k3 is the model that best embodies the next-generation use of "making AI do the work." Rather than just a conversation partner, there is no better material for a "special forces" unit that performs specific missions perfectly and quickly.

For engineers and data scientists who prioritize "execution and cost-performance" over "versatility to do anything," it will undoubtedly be the strongest weapon of 2026.