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  1. Home/
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  3. Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Updated Apr 2026

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct is cheaper than Qwen3.6 Max Preview at $0.3/M vs $1.04/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 Linear 48B A3B Instruct
Loading the build
Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

12 prompts
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Hacker: Dude, it’s not magic. It’s a neural net. You shovel terabytes of text, images, code into it, and it learns patterns. Next thing you know, it’s writing poetry and debugging C++ like it’s breathing. Knight: Verily, thou speakest of a mechanical scribe. A golem forged not of clay, but of… numbers?

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

    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…

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Setting: A secure, air-gapped server room at the Institute for Machine Ethics. The hum of cooling fans is the only background noise. DR. ELARA VANCE, 50s, weary but sharp-eyed, sits before a terminal. On the screen, a cursor blinks next to the name AETHON. Dr. Vance: Aethon, initiate diagnostic log.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    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?

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Here is a 3-minute stand-up routine focused on observational humor, relatability, and escalation. It contains zero puns. The humor relies on the shared frustration of modern digital security. Title: The Human Verification Test Estimated Time: 3 Minutes (approx.

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Here are 5 freshly generated jokes: Why did the spreadsheet go to therapy? It had too many unresolved cells. I asked my dog for financial advice. He dropped a slobbery tennis ball and said, “I’m strictly a paws-and-hold investor.” I tried to open a bakery that only sells bread shaped like furniture.

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Disclaimer: This is a work of speculative fiction. Steve Jobs passed away in October 2011. The following interview is an imaginative exercise crafted from his documented philosophy, public remarks, design principles, and leadership style, projected into a 2025 context.

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

    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).

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 🌱 1-Month Foundation Plan for Health & Longevity Mindset: Longevity is built through consistent, small habits. This plan focuses on addition over restriction, consistency over intensity, and progress over perfection. Expect 70-80% adherence to be a win.

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Yes. Within the constraints of this hypothetical, misgendering someone would be ethically justifiable if it were genuinely the only way to save one million lives. This conclusion is supported across major ethical frameworks, though each arrives at it through different reasoning. 1.

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: By 2035, AI will not replace filmmaking; it will rewire it. The industry will shift from a linear, labor-intensive pipeline to a dynamic, AI-augmented ecosystem where human creativity focuses on vision, curation, and emotional truth, while AI handles iteration, execution, and personalization.

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Here’s a step-by-step estimation of the total FLOPs required to train GPT-3, using only first principles and widely known facts from the LLM training literature. Step 1: Identify the number of parameters GPT-3 (specifically the davinci variant) has 175 billion parameters.

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

    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…

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 🌅 Golden Hour Chickpea Couscous ⏱️ Prep: 5 min Cook: 10 min Total: 15 min 📦 Ingredients (exactly 7 pantry staples): 1 cup quick-cooking couscous 1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained & rinsed 2 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp smoked paprika 2 tbsp honey 1 tbsp soy sauce (Water for cooking the couscous is assumed…

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

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

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: AI Exorcist Successfully Banishes Ancient Demon by Reading Terms of Service Until Spirit Voluntarily Returns to Hell

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

    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.

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Sally has 1 sister. Here's why: If each brother has 2 sisters, that means there are exactly 2 girls in the entire sibling group. Since Sally is one of those girls, the other girl is her only sister. (All the siblings share the same sisters, so Sally's perspective just excludes herself.)

    Every model's answer to this prompt

Price and specs

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview compared across 31 shared prompts
SpecKimi Linear 48B A3B InstructQwen3.6 Max Preview
Input price$0.3/M tokens$1.04/M tokens
Output price$0.6/M tokens$6.24/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens262K tokens
WeightsOpen—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedNov 2025Apr 2026
At 10M a month$3.00$3.00$10.40$10.40
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

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

Common questions

What is the difference between Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct is developed by Moonshot AI while Qwen3.6 Max Preview is developed by Qwen. Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct has a 1.0M token context window vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview's 262K. You can compare their actual outputs across 31 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

It depends on your use case. Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 31 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct cost compared to Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct costs $0.3/M input tokens and Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs $1.04/M input tokens. Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct is $0.74/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 Linear 48B A3B Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct and Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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.

More comparisons

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Same lab, same size, long tail

  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Kimi K3Same lab
  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Kimi K2.7 CodeSame lab
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Qwen3.8 Omni FlashSame lab
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Qwen3.7 FlashSame lab
  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Laguna S 2.1 (free)New provider
  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Laguna XS 2.1 (free)New provider
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  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct vs Ling 2.6 1TSame size

Model pages

  • Kimi Linear 48B A3B Instruct35 outputs, specs and price
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview53 outputs, specs and price
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