Head-to-head comparison
Kimi K3 (Moonshot AI) and Grok 4.6 (xAI) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.
Snapshot as of 17 August 2026
As of 17 August 2026, Kimi K3 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#3 vs #10); Grok 4.6 is 2.5× cheaper per output token ($6.00/1M vs $15.00/1M); and Kimi K3 offers the longer context window (1M vs 500K tokens).
Evidence: 5 public benchmark observations across 5 boards · 5 public benchmark observations across 5 boards. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.
Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.
Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.
Kimi K3 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 17 August 2026: #3 against #10. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it.
Grok 4.6 is cheaper on output tokens: $6.00/1M against $15.00/1M. Input tokens are $3.00/1M for Kimi K3 and $2.00/1M for Grok 4.6. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens.
Kimi K3 has the larger context window: 1M tokens against 500K.
Arena coding: Kimi K3 1543, Grok 4.6 1512 — Kimi K3 leads.
Kimi K3: Restricted license. Grok 4.6: API only. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.
ModelCap currently lists 12 API providers for Kimi K3 and 1 for Grok 4.6, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.
Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 17 August 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.