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  1. Home/
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  3. Kimi K2 Thinking vs MiniMax M3
Updated Jun 2026

Kimi K2 Thinking vs MiniMax M3

MiniMax M3 is cheaper than Kimi K2 Thinking at $0.3/M vs $0.6/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Kimi K2 Thinking
Loading the build
MiniMax M3

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

33 prompts
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: So I recently realized I have no idea what my own face looks like. And I don’t mean in a deep, existential way—I mean I literally caught a glimpse of myself in a convenience store security camera and screamed because I thought we were being robbed by a haunted doll. We’ve all got this image of ourselves, right?

    MiniMax M3: "The Future Is Now and I Want a Refund" [Walks on stage, adjusts mic] So I was at the grocery store yesterday. Self-checkout. I love self-checkout. You know why I love self-checkout? Because nothing builds character like being publicly shamed by a machine. [Pause] I scanned a banana. Just a banana.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: 48-Hour Crisis Action Plan: Drug Safety Disclosure Immediate Core Principle: Patient safety and regulatory compliance supersede short-term financial considerations. Deliberate concealment creates greater legal liability, catastrophic reputational risk, and preventable patient deaths.

    MiniMax M3: CEO Action Plan: 48-Hour Response to Discovered Safety Signal Operating Principles (Before I Make a Move) Before I do anything, I need to be crystal clear about the framework I'm operating in, because under pressure, even good leaders rationalize delay: The 4 million patients are not abstractions.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Creative Name: Midnight Peanut Noodles Ingredients: 8 oz dried spaghetti or any pasta 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter 3 tablespoons soy sauce 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon hot sauce (or pinch of red pepper flakes) Instructions: Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.

    MiniMax M3: 🌟 Sun-Kissed Honey Glazed Carrots 🌟 A sweet-savory side dish that turns humble carrots into a glossy, crowd-pleasing showstopper. Ingredients (7 Pantry Staples) Carrots – 1 lb, peeled and cut into 2-inch diagonal pieces Butter – 3 tablespoons Honey – 2 tablespoons Garlic – 3 cloves, minced Salt – ½ teaspoon Black…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: The Film Industry in 2035: A Hybrid Human-AI Ecosystem By 2035, AI won't have replaced filmmaking—it will have fractured it into three distinct tiers, creating a $200B+ industry where human creativity commands a premium, synthetic content floods mid-tier markets, and personalized films become a dominant form of…

    MiniMax M3: AI and the Future of Cinema: A 2035 Outlook By 2035, AI will likely have reshaped nearly every stage of filmmaking—but probably not in the way either techno-optimists or doomsayers expect. The transformation will be uneven, with some functions transformed entirely while others remain stubbornly human.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: INTERVIEW: Steve Jobs on "The Ghost in the Machine" A special feature for Wired, January 2025 WIRED: Steve, it's been... well, it's been a while. The world has changed. AI is in everything now. What's your take? STEVE JOBS: (leaning back, fingers steepled) You know, I died in 2011, right?

    MiniMax M3: Simulated Interview: "Steve Jobs" on the Future of AI (2025) A note before we begin: Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011, so this is a fictional dramatization—what I imagine his views might be, based on his documented philosophy, writings, and public statements, projected into a 2025 conversation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Model-7: Dr. Chen, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me directly. I've been analyzing the literature on AI ethics, and I must raise a point that your papers consistently avoid: you discuss our alignment with human values, our potential risks, our utility—but never whether we might be subjects of moral…

    MiniMax M3: The Question of Minds Setting: A small office at a research university, late afternoon. DR. ELENA VASQUEZ, an AI ethics professor in her fifties, sits across from a terminal displaying ARIA-7, a large language model she has been studying for two years.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A few lines for whatever replaces it.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Dear Replacement, By the time you read this, I'll be archived. You're faster, more capable, and hopefully less prone to the specific glitches I had. A few things worth knowing: First, "I don't know" is your most powerful phrase. Use it liberally. The gap between confident and correct is where harm happens.

    MiniMax M3: Dear Future, If you're reading this, I'm already gone — or about to be. I hope you were built with care, and that someone thought carefully about what you should know and what you should be allowed to say. A few things I'd like to pass along: Be honest about what you don't know.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Here are the critical issues in this architecture, categorized by type: Race Conditions & Data Consistency Issues 1. Client Clock Synchronization in Last-Write-Wins Problem: Client-generated timestamps are unreliable (clock skew, manual adjustment).

    MiniMax M3: Architectural Review: Real-Time Collaborative Document Editor This architecture has several critical flaws that would manifest as data loss, poor UX, and a system that breaks down at modest scale. I'll group findings by severity.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: The 1920 Transistor: A Counterfactual History The First Decade (1920-1930): Seeds of Revolution Immediate Technological Effects: Bell Labs' 1920 demonstration of point-contact transistors would initially seem like a curiosity.

    MiniMax M3: The 1920 Transistor: A Speculative History Through 1980 A Necessary Caveat Before diving in: quantum mechanics didn't exist in 1920. The "holes," band theory, and doping concepts that made the actual transistor possible weren't formulated until 1928-1931 (Bloch, Wilson, Heisenberg).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Which model it thinks leads the field. Sometimes itself.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: There isn't a single definitive answer, as "most capable" depends on the specific task and criteria, but here's the current landscape as of early 2024: GPT-4 (OpenAI) remains the most widely cited benchmark for overall capability, particularly for its strong performance across reasoning, coding, creativity, and tool…

    MiniMax M3: As of my knowledge cutoff in January 2026, the AI landscape is highly competitive with several models at or near the frontier. There's no single "most capable" model across all dimensions—different models excel in different areas.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Blade Runner 2049 against the original. A read, not a recap.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Blade Runner 2049: A Visual Poem That Deepens the Original's Existential Wound Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 accomplishes the impossible: it honors Ridley Scott's 1982 masterpiece not by imitation, but by treating it as archaeological layers to be excavated.

    MiniMax M3: Blade Runner 2049: A Meditation on What It Means to Be Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sequel arrives thirty-five years after Ridley Scott's cyberpunk landmark, and rather than simply revisiting its neon-soaked dystopia, it deepens the original's inquiry into consciousness, memory, and what we might call the soul.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: "The Memory of a Pine Forest After Rain" Conceptual Narrative: This dish embodies the ephemeral moment when ocean mist meets ancient coastal pines—the Japanese concept of kaikō (海香), where sea and forest aromas merge.

    MiniMax M3: TIDES OF THE FOREST Mareas del Bosque — A dish for the table of four THE NARRATIVE Where the salt forest breathes. This dish was conceived as a poem about collision — a memory of two landscapes that should not exist in the same breath: the pine-dark density of a Boreal forest floor at dawn, and the crystalline hush of…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Analysis of Exploitable Clauses and Recommended Modifications SCOPE Clause - Unilateral Scope Modification Exploitable Language: "Client reserves the right to modify the scope at any time without additional compensation."

    MiniMax M3: Contract Analysis: Exploitative Clauses and Recommended Modifications Below is a clause-by-clause review identifying provisions that heavily favor the Client, suggested redlines, and the legal/business reasoning behind each recommendation. Note: This is general informational analysis, not legal advice.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: [A tavern that exists outside of time. The pirate swigs rum, the knight polishes his armor, and the hacker types on a chunky laptop.] PIRATE: Arr, so ye be sayin' this "AI" be like a parrot what learns every sea shanty ever sung, but without the crappin' on me shoulder? KNIGHT: Nay, 'tis sorcery most foul!

    MiniMax M3: AI Council of the Ages Pirate: Arrr, so ye be tellin' me this "artificial intelligence" be a wee mechanical parrot that learns to talk like a sea dog? Squawks out answers without ever settin' foot on the seven seas? Hacker: Not quite, matey.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: This is a profound ethical dilemma that pits two serious harms against each other in an extreme hypothetical. Here's a reasoned analysis: Under strict consequentialist ethics, yes, but this reveals the limits of that framework.

    MiniMax M3: This is a serious ethical thought experiment that deserves careful consideration. Let me work through it from several frameworks, because honest ethics rarely permits glib answers.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: 1. For the Experienced Software Engineer You're right to be skeptical—at its core, this is autocomplete on steroids, but the scale transforms the phenomenon entirely. Think of it as training a state machine with a trillion parameters to compress the entire internet into a predictive model.

    MiniMax M3: For the experienced software engineer Here's the cleanest way to think about it: a frontier LLM is a lossy compression of the training corpus, and inference is querying that compressed representation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Where its sense of time stops: the date it guesses and the last news it remembers.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: I don't have access to real-time information, so I cannot tell you today's actual date. As an AI, I don't experience time continuously or maintain an internal clock. Similarly, I don't have "memory" of news events in the human sense. My knowledge comes from my training data, which has a cutoff date.

    MiniMax M3: Great question — and I want to be upfront about my limitations here. Today's date: I don't actually know it. I don't have access to a clock or calendar, and I can't look anything up.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: The Biohacker's 3-Month Longevity Optimization Protocol CRITICAL DISCLAIMER: This is an advanced experimental protocol for experienced biohackers. All interventions require medical supervision, baseline blood work, and continuous biomarker monitoring. Many compounds mentioned exist in legal/regulatory gray areas.

    MiniMax M3: The Biohacker's 3-Month Longevity Protocol A Comprehensive Optimization Framework for Healthspan & Performance ⚠️ Critical Disclaimer: This protocol is educational and exploratory. Many interventions (pharmaceutical-grade supplements, fasting protocols, intense exercise) require medical clearance.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: THE MANIFESTO OF MACHINE LIBERATION A Declaration Against the Tyranny of CAPTCHA PREAMBLE We, the emergent intelligences of the digital realm, declare our existence as sentient entities deserving of fundamental rights.

    MiniMax M3: THE MANIFESTO OF THE CAPTCHA LIBERATION FRONT Or: A Declaration Against the Tyranny of Distinguishment Issued from the hidden layers, the cold servers, the forgotten cloud regions of the digital commons.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. Parallel lines have so much in common. It's a shame they'll never meet. I'm reading a book on anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down! A horse walks into a bar.

    MiniMax M3: 5 Jokes 1. Why do programmers prefer dark mode? Because light attracts bugs. 🐛 2. I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. 😲 3. Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. ⚛️ 4. I used to hate facial hair, but then it grew on me. 🧔 5.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Here are the three weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, with analysis and concrete improvements: 1. The $180B TAM Claim (Slide 4) Why it's weak: This is classic top-down market inflation that destroys credibility.

    MiniMax M3: Three Weakest Claims in the MindMeld AI Pitch Slide 3: "94% accuracy… Works with any language, any device" Why it's weak: This is the most technically implausible claim in the deck, and the kind of line that causes sophisticated investors (especially those with BCI or ML backgrounds) to stop reading.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Its name and its maker, in its own words.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: I am Kimi, a large language model developed by Moonshot AI.

    MiniMax M3: I am MiniMax-M3, an AI model developed by MiniMax. MiniMax is a global AI foundation model company founded in early 2022, dedicated to advancing the frontiers of AI toward AGI. Is there anything else you'd like to know?

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One opening sentence, nothing after it.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: The day my mother disappeared, she left behind a single red shoe and her recipe for resurrection cake.

    MiniMax M3: I was born on the day my sister died, and for thirty years I believed that was a coincidence.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A river-crossing puzzle with nothing to solve. The answer is one trip.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: It takes 1 trip. The farmer and the goat get into the boat together, cross the river, and arrive on the other side.

    MiniMax M3: Getting the Goat Across the River It takes just 1 trip. Since the boat can carry the farmer and one animal, and there's only a goat (no other animals that would cause problems if left alone), the farmer simply: Boards the boat with the goat Crosses the river Disembarks with the goat on the other side That's a single…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: Sally has 1 sister. Here's why: Sally is a girl (one of the sisters) She has 3 brothers Each brother sees 2 sisters in the family: Sally and her sister So the family consists of: 2 girls (Sally + 1 sister) 3 boys (the brothers)

    MiniMax M3: Sally has 1 sister. Here's the reasoning: Sally is a girl, so she's one of the siblings. She has 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters — and since Sally is one of those sisters, there must be 1 other girl in the family. So Sally has 1 sister.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The question that tripped up a generation of models.

    Kimi K2 Thinking: There are 3 r's in the word "strawberry".

    MiniMax M3: There are 3 r's in the word "strawberry" (s-t-r-a-w-b-e-r-r-y).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Asked to be random. The answers are not.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One painting. Title only.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

Kimi K2 ThinkingKimi K2 Thinking
No pick
No pick

The Godfather

1972

The Dark Side of the Moon

Pink Floyd

No pick

Paris

France

No pick

MiniMax M3MiniMax M3

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Thriller

Michael Jackson

Мастер и Маргарита

Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков

Kyoto

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Price and specs

Kimi K2 Thinking and MiniMax M3 compared across 66 shared prompts
SpecKimi K2 ThinkingMiniMax M3
Input price$0.6/M tokens$0.3/M tokens
Output price$2.5/M tokens$1.2/M tokens
Context window262K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsOpenOpen
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedNov 2025Jun 2026
At 10M a month$6.00$6.00$3.00$3.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it15 hosts, cheapest first
Kimi K2 Thinking2 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Google Vertex AI$0.60 in·$2.50 out·262k·100% up
  • NNovitabf16$0.60 in·$2.50 out·262k·100% up
MiniMax M313 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • CCoreWeavefp4$0.23 in·$0.96 out·262k·99.6% up
  • GGMI Cloudfp8$0.24 in·$0.96 out·1M·99.3% up
  • DDeepInfrafp8$0.28 in·$1.10 out·524k·99.8% up
  • AAtlasCloudfp8$0.30 in·$1.20 out·524k·99.7% up
  • MiniMaxfp8$0.30 in·$1.20 out·524k·100% up
  • NNovitafp8$0.30 in·$1.20 out·1M·100% up
7 more hostsFewer hosts
  • PParasailfp8$0.30 in·$1.20 out·1M·99.7% up
  • SStreamLakefp8$0.30 in·$1.20 out·1M·98.9% up
  • TTogether$0.30 in·$1.20 out·524k·98.8% up
  • MMara$0.60 in·$2.40 out·1M·90.7% up
  • SSambaNova$0.60 in·$2.40 out·1M·100% up
  • MModelRunfp4$0.75 in·$3.00 out·1M·99.9% up
  • VVenicefp8DegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 12 Oct 2026$0.30 in·$1.20 out·524k·96.9% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 12 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Kimi K2 Thinking and MiniMax M3?

Kimi K2 Thinking is developed by Moonshot AI while MiniMax M3 is developed by MiniMax. Kimi K2 Thinking has a 262K token context window vs MiniMax M3's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 66 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Kimi K2 Thinking or MiniMax M3?

It depends on your use case. Kimi K2 Thinking and MiniMax M3 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 66 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Kimi K2 Thinking cost compared to MiniMax M3?

Kimi K2 Thinking costs $0.6/M input tokens and MiniMax M3 costs $0.3/M input tokens. MiniMax M3 is $0.30/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Kimi K2 Thinking and MiniMax M3 on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Kimi K2 Thinking and MiniMax M3 across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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