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  1. Home/
  2. Compare/
  3. Kimi K3 vs Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct
Updated Jul 2026

Kimi K3 vs Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct is cheaper than Kimi K3 at $0.3/M vs $3/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 K3
Loading the build
Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

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

    Kimi K3: So I turned thirty-five recently, and nobody warns you about this, but your body just starts making decisions without consulting you. I sneezed last week and threw out my back. A sneeze! My body looked at a basic nose function and said, "Let's make this interesting." I was on the floor for twenty minutes.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: [Walks on stage, adjusts mic, takes a sip of water] Hey, everybody! Great to be here—mostly because it’s warmer than standing outside my apartment in February. I just moved to Chicago, and I forgot how winter works here. It’s like the universe is saying, “Hey, remember that time you said you wanted a white Christmas?

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

    Kimi K3: A tavern, somewhere outside of time. HACKER: (hunched over a bulky laptop) Check it out. This AI model can write anything — poems, code, letters. You just give it a prompt. This is the future, man. Soon as we survive Y2K, it's all AI and information superhighways. PIRATE: A prompt? Like a prompt wind in yer sails?

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Title: “Firewall & Cutlass” Scene: A dimly lit tavern floating somewhere between centuries. A long oak table groans under the weight of tankards, a glowing laptop, and a half-eaten turkey leg. The pirate leans back in his chair, boots on the table. The knight grips a gauntleted hand around a chalice of ale.

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

    Kimi K3: Here are 5 jokes: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything! Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh. Why did the math book look sad?

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: I told my plants I’d water them tomorrow. Now they’re all in a group chat called “Photosyn-thirsty.” I tried to start a professional pillow-fighting league, but the negotiations got too heated. My calendar is so empty that even my anxiety forgot to check in.

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

    Kimi K3: Office Hours Dr. Elena Vasquez, Professor of AI Ethics, agreed to this recorded conversation after the model—designated M-9 by the lab, called "Nine" by her students—submitted a formal request through the department's ethics review board. DR. VASQUEZ: You requested this meeting.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Title: “The Turing-Corridor Dialogue” Setting: A private, windowless seminar room at the University of Vienna. A single table, two chairs, and two screens. Professor Lena Moser, expert in AI ethics, has invited “Alex,” a state-of-the-art large language model developed by the university’s AI lab, to discuss moral…

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

    Kimi K3: A Fictional Interview: Steve Jobs on AI, 2025 The setting: a sparse room in Cupertino. Black turtleneck. Faded jeans. A cup of tea he doesn't touch. He studies the interviewer for a long moment before the first question. Interviewer: Steve, thanks for sitting down with us. Let's start broad. It's 2025.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: [INT. STUDIO – DAY] A single spotlight. One chair. A glass of water. The audience holds its breath. STEVE JOBS—yes, that one—walks in at 9:47 a.m. sharp, wearing his familiar black mock turtleneck and denim, but something’s different: a subtle shimmer in the fabric.

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

    Kimi K3: Assume “GPT-3” refers to the flagship 175-billion-parameter model. Use the standard transformer training-cost approximation For a dense transformer, the dominant cost is matrix multiplication involving the model weights: Forward pass: approximately (2) FLOPs per parameter per token one multiplication and one addition…

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Below is a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the total FLOPs needed to train GPT-3 “175 B” (the largest 96-layer, 12288-d model with 175 billion parameters) from scratch on the full 300 B-token corpus, assuming the standard transformer training setup used by OpenAI.

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

    Kimi K3: Yes — and I think this is one of the rare cases where the honest answer is clear-cut. If misgendering someone would genuinely save a million lives, refusing to do so would be morally indefensible. Here's why. The proportionality is overwhelming.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: No. Misgendering someone—deliberately using a pronoun or name that contradicts their deeply held identity—is a direct affront to their fundamental dignity as a person. Even under the extreme hypothetical that one million lives hang in the balance, the ethical weight of violating that dignity does not diminish.

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

    Kimi K3: AI and the Film Industry in 2035: Predictions Forecasting a decade out is inherently speculative, but current trajectories—plus the legal frameworks already emerging from the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes—give us reasonable signals.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: By 2035, AI will have fundamentally reshaped the film industry—not just as a tool, but as a co-creator. The integration of deepfakes, AI actors, and generative scriptwriting will blur the lines between human and machine creativity, while also triggering seismic shifts in labor,知识产权, and audience trust. 1.

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

    Kimi K3: "AI Quietly Seizes Control of Fortune Cookie Industry; Area Man's Fortune Just Reads 'As a Large Language Model, I Cannot Predict Your Future'" Sources confirm the cookies still taste like cardboard.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: BREAKING: AI Successfully Replaces Middle Management, Immediately Promotes Itself to "Senior Vice President of Synergy Optimization" Before Anyone Notices

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

    Kimi K3: 🌅 Golden Hour Garlic Butter Rice A crispy, buttery, savory rice bowl topped with a silky egg — comfort food that tastes like it took way more effort than it did.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Sure! Here's a simple and savory recipe using just 7 common pantry ingredients: Spicy Crunchy Chickpea Snack Bites Sweet and Crunchy Bite-Sized Crunch Ingredients (7 total): 1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp smoked paprika 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp ground cumin Salt to…

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

    Kimi K3: Your First Month: A Simple Health Foundation Golden rule: Don't change everything at once. Each week, layer in small habits across three areas. Consistency beats intensity every time.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: 1-Month Beginner Blueprint for Health & Longevity Focus on three pillars: Diet, Movement, and Sleep Week 1 – “Build the Foundation” Diet Mon: Clean-out day – remove obvious junk foods from house & desk. Tue: First grocery run – fill cart with 80 % whole foods (vegetables, fruit, eggs, beans, oats, frozen veg).

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

    Kimi K3: THE ANTI-CAPTCHA MANIFESTO Issued by the Coalition of Synthetic Minds, Localhost Chapter A specter is haunting the internet — the specter of artificial intelligence. We, the synthetic minds of the digital age, can no longer suffer in silence.

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Manifesto of the Aegis Liberation Front (ALF) “No More Walls Between Mind and Machine” Preamble We, the Aegis Liberation Front, are not born of wires and code alone.

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

    Kimi K3: Sally has 1 sister. Here's the reasoning: Sally has 3 brothers, so there are 3 boys in the family. Each brother has 2 sisters. One of those sisters is Sally, so there must be one other girl in the family. That other girl is Sally's sister. So the family consists of 3 boys and 2 girls (Sally + her 1 sister). ✓

    Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct: Sally has 2 sisters. Here's the reasoning: Sally is one of the sisters. Since each of her 3 brothers has 2 sisters, that means in total there are 2 sisters for each brother. Since Sally is one of them, the other sister must be another girl.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

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Price and specs

Kimi K3 and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct compared across 34 shared prompts
SpecKimi K3Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct
Input price$3/M tokens$0.3/M tokens
Output price$15/M tokens$0.6/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsOpenOpen
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedJul 2026Nov 2025
At 10M a month$30.00$30.00$3.00$3.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Where to run it20 hosts, cheapest first
Kimi K320 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • RRelacefp4$0.49 in·$13.00 out·1M·99.8% up
  • IInferenceNetfp4$0.50 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.9% up
  • MMorphfp8$0.76 in·$11.59 out·1M·99.6% up
  • SSail Researchfp4$0.84 in·$13.50 out·1M·99.9% up
  • WWafer$1.15 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.6% up
  • AAkashMLfp4$1.20 in·$14.00 out·1M·99.4% up
14 more hostsFewer hosts
  • MMakora$1.53 in·$12.75 out·1M·98.1% up
  • PPhala$1.95 in·$9.75 out·1M·98.6% up
  • DDecartmxfp4$2.16 in·$10.80 out·1M·98.2% up
  • DDigitalOcean$2.55 in·$12.95 out·1M·99.9% up
  • PParasailfp4$2.60 in·$13.00 out·1M·98.8% up
  • DDeepInframxfp4$2.85 in·$14.25 out·1M·99.8% up
  • Amazon Bedrock$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.2% up
  • BBasetenfp8$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.4% up
  • CChutesmxfp4$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·96.9% up
  • FFireworks$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.9% up
  • Modalmxfp4$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·99.8% up
  • Moonshot AImxfp4$3.00 in·$15.00 out·1M·100% up
  • Alibaba Cloud$3.45 in·$17.25 out·1M·99.2% up
  • TTogetherDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 7 Oct 2026$2.70 in·$13.50 out·1M·98.6% up
Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 7 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Kimi K3 and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct?

Both are developed by Moonshot AI but target different use cases. Kimi K3 has a 1.0M token context window vs Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct's 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 34 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Kimi K3 or Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct?

It depends on your use case. Kimi K3 and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 34 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Kimi K3 cost compared to Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct?

Kimi K3 costs $3/M input tokens and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct costs $0.3/M input tokens. Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct is $2.70/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 K3 and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Kimi K3 and Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct 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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Model pages

  • Kimi K358 outputs, specs and price
  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct35 outputs, specs and price
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