Overview
Released: January 27, 2026
Parameters: 1 trillion total (32B activated via MoE architecture)
Context Window: 256,000 tokens
Architecture: Native multimodal (text, image, video)
Moonshot AI’s Kimi k2.5 is an open-source, natively multimodal model that delivers Claude 3.5 Sonnet-level coding performance with unique vision capabilities. Built on continued pretraining over 15 trillion mixed visual and text tokens, it excels at tasks requiring visual reasoning alongside code generation.
Key Capabilities
Vision-Coding Integration
Kimi k2.5 processes images and video natively to generate functional code. Specific strengths include:
- Video-to-code: Reconstruct complete websites from demo videos or screen recordings
- Image-to-interface: Generate interactive frontend components from design mockups or screenshots
- Visual debugging: Identify UI issues by analyzing rendered output and suggest fixes
- Frontend development: Create pixel-perfect layouts with animations from natural language or visual references
Agent Swarm Architecture
Unlike single-turn chat models, Kimi k2.5 can self-direct up to 100 sub-agents working in parallel. This enables:
- Parallel research: Execute multiple search queries simultaneously, reducing research tasks by up to 4.5x
- Batch processing: Handle multiple files or documents concurrently
- Multi-step workflows: Decompose complex tasks into coordinated sub-tasks without manual orchestration
Multimodal Reasoning
The model’s native vision encoder (MoonViT) processes ultra-high-resolution inputs up to 3.2 million pixels, enabling detailed analysis of:
- Dense technical diagrams
- Multi-page document scans
- UI/UX mockups with precise element detection
- Video sequences for temporal understanding
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Score | Context |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.8% | Software engineering tasks (source) |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 73.0% | Cross-language software engineering (source) |
| MMLU-Pro | 87.1% | General knowledge (Thinking mode) 1 |
| GPQA-Diamond | 87.6% | Graduate-level reasoning (Thinking mode) 1 |
| Context Window | 256K tokens | ~200,000 words or large codebases (source) |
Comparison: Kimi k2.5’s 76.8% SWE-bench Verified score places it competitive with frontier models, though Claude 4.5 Opus leads at 80.9%.
Last verified: January 30, 2026. Source: Hugging Face
API Pricing
For production use beyond free tiers:
| Usage Type | Price per 1M tokens |
|---|---|
| Input (cache hit) | $0.10 |
| Input (cache miss) | $0.60 |
| Output | $3.00 |
Cost comparison: At $3.00/1M output tokens, Kimi k2.5 is priced competitively against Claude 3.5 Sonnet API ($3.00/1M output tokens) while offering additional multimodal capabilities.
vs Claude Opus 4.5: Kimi k2.5 delivers comparable coding performance at a fraction of the cost. See detailed comparison below.
Free Access Methods
1. Kilo Code — Free Hosted Tier + BYOK
VS Code extension offering ongoing free Kimi k2.5 access via hosted tier (no API keys required), plus BYOK (bring your own keys) support.
Access methods:
- Hosted free tier: Kimi k2.5 without adding API keys (rate limits apply)
- BYOK mode: Add your own Moonshot API key for unlimited access
Current offers (verified Feb 1, 2026):
- Free Kimi k2.5 via hosted tier
- $20 bonus on first credit top-up (expires in 60 days)
- Kilo Pass subscriptions ($19/$49/$199/month) with bonus credits
- First-time subscribers get 50% bonus credits for 2 months (expires Feb 6, 2026)
Best for: VS Code users wanting IDE-native Kimi k2.5 with flexible upgrade options.
See complete details in Kilo Code guide
2. OpenCode Zen (Ongoing Free Tier)
OpenCode’s hosted service includes Kimi k2.5 in its free tier alongside GLM 4.7. Note: Opus 4.5 is NOT available on the free Zen tier. Rate limits apply—OpenCode uses a pay-as-you-go model with spending limits, not request-based limits.
Best for: Sustained daily use without time limits. Perfect for ongoing development work after the Kilo Code trial expires.
See setup instructions in Free AI Coding Tools guide
3. Kimi Code Moderato (7-Day Trial → $19/mo)
Moonshot’s official IDE offers a 7-day free trial (card required), then $19/month for the Moderato plan. This is the native Kimi k2.5 experience with official IDE integration.
Best for: Users who want the official Moonshot IDE, plan sustained daily use, or prioritize native integration over free alternatives. At $19/month, it’s $1 cheaper than Claude Pro ($20) with comparable performance (76.8% SWE-bench vs Sonnet 4.5’s ~78%).
The catch: Auto-renews after 7 days unless cancelled. Kimi k2.5 only—no model switching. Card required upfront.
Tool deep dive: /tools/kimi-code/
Last verified: January 31, 2026
When to Use Kimi k2.5
Choose Kimi k2.5 when:
- Building UI from visuals: You have mockups, screenshots, or videos and need working code
- Processing visual documentation: Analyzing diagrams, schematics, or multi-page scans alongside text
- Parallel task execution: Research or batch operations that benefit from multiple concurrent agents
- Budget-conscious multimodal work: Free access makes it cost-effective for vision+coding tasks
Consider alternatives when:
- Maximum reasoning depth required: Claude Opus 4.5 (80.9% SWE-bench) leads on complex software architecture by ~4 percentage points. See price-performance analysis above to determine if the 8x cost premium is justified for your use case.
- High-context workflows: Gemini 3 Flash offers a 1 million token context window (4x larger than Kimi’s 256K) with FREE input tokens. For codebase analysis, document processing, or RAG systems, Flash’s pricing is unbeatable.
- Strict enterprise compliance: Anthropic’s enterprise terms may better suit regulated industries. Review Claude Max plan terms for enterprise features.
- Extended thinking mode: Kimi’s “Thinking” mode adds latency; for real-time applications, use “Instant” mode (temperature 0.6)
Kimi k2.5 vs Claude Opus 4.5: Price-Performance Analysis
For developers considering premium models, the comparison between Kimi k2.5 and Claude Opus 4.5 reveals a dramatic price-performance opportunity.
API Pricing Comparison
| Model | Input (1M tokens) | Output (1M tokens) | Cost Ratio vs Kimi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kimi k2.5 | $0.10–$0.60 | $3.00 | Baseline |
| Claude Opus 4.5 | $5.00 | $25.00 | 8.3x more expensive |
The math: Claude Opus 4.5 costs 8x more on output and 8–50x more on input compared to Kimi k2.5. For a typical coding session generating 500K output tokens, that’s $1.50 with Kimi vs $12.50 with Claude Opus 4.5.
Performance Comparison
| Benchmark | Kimi k2.5 | Claude Opus 4.5 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.8% | ~80.9% | -4.1 percentage points |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 200K tokens | +56K tokens (28% larger) |
| Vision capabilities | Native multimodal | Text-primary | Kimi leads on vision-to-code |
| Agent architecture | 100 sub-agents | Single agent | Kimi leads on parallel execution |
Verdict: Claude Opus 4.5 holds a slight edge on pure software engineering benchmarks (~4% higher SWE-bench score), but Kimi k2.5 offers superior context window size, native vision capabilities, and parallel agent execution at 1/8th the API cost.
When to Choose Which
Choose Kimi k2.5 when:
- Budget efficiency matters (8x cost savings)
- Working with visual inputs (mockups, videos, diagrams)
- Need parallel task execution (agent swarm)
- Processing large contexts (256K vs 200K)
- Want free tier access for testing
Choose Claude Opus 4.5 when:
- Maximum reasoning depth is critical (that extra 4% on SWE-bench matters)
- Enterprise compliance requirements favor Anthropic’s terms
- Already invested in Claude ecosystem (Claude Code, Max plan)
- Need “effort parameter” control for token optimization
Reference: See Claude Opus 4.5 pricing data and Smart Spend Guide for subscription vs API break-even analysis.
Quick Comparison Table
| Capability | Kimi k2.5 | Gemini 3 Flash | Claude Opus 4.5 | GPT-5.2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 76.8% | 78.0% | ~80.9% | 80.0% |
| Vision-to-code | Native | Yes | Limited | Limited |
| Context window | 256K | 1,000,000 | 200K | 128K |
| Agent swarm | 100 sub-agents | No | Single agent | Single agent |
| Input cost | $0.10-0.60/1M | FREE | $5/1M | Variable |
| API cost (output) | $3.00/1M | $3.00/1M | $25.00/1M | Variable |
| Free access | Yes (2 methods) | Google AI Studio | No | Limited |
*Claude 3.5 Sonnet SWE-bench score estimated from independent evaluations; official Anthropic figures vary by evaluation framework.
Limitations
Geographic availability: Moonshot AI is a Chinese company. While the model is open-source, API access may have regional restrictions or latency considerations for non-Asian users.
Thinking mode tradeoffs: The 87.1% MMLU-Pro and 87.6% GPQA-Diamond scores are achieved in “Thinking” mode, which adds reasoning time. For latency-sensitive applications, “Instant” mode (temperature 0.6) is faster but may score lower on reasoning benchmarks.
Ecosystem maturity: As a newer model (released January 2026), Kimi k2.5 has fewer community integrations compared to Claude or GPT. Tooling and third-party support are growing but not as extensive.
Rate limits on free tiers: Kilo Code offered 1-week access during the promo (ended Feb 3, 2026). Ongoing free access through OpenCode Zen has rate limits—OpenCode uses a pay-as-you-go model with spending limits, not request-based limits. Heavy production use requires paid API access.
Related Resources
Free Access Guides:
- Free Frontier Stack - Complete setup guide for Kilo Code and OpenCode
- OpenCode Tool Guide - Detailed OpenCode configuration and usage
Paid Options & Value Analysis:
- Gemini 3 Flash Model Guide - 78% SWE-bench, FREE input tokens, 1M context window
- Smart Spend Guide - When to upgrade from free to paid options, including Claude Pro/Max pricing and break-even calculations
- Claude Opus 4.5 Data Reference - Normalized pricing and usage limits (YAML)
Terms & Risk Analysis:
- Claude Max Terms - Enterprise plan details and data retention
- Anthropic Third-Party Access Risks - Policy constraints for API usage
Last verified: February 1, 2026. Benchmarks verified: SWE-bench Verified 76.8%, SWE-bench Multilingual 73.0%, 256K context window confirmed via Hugging Face. Kilo Code: Free Kimi k2.5 via hosted tier verified (via kilo.ai dashboard). Current offers: $20 first top-up bonus, Kilo Pass subscriptions, BYOK support.
Benchmarks from Hugging Face model card and Kimi.com technical blog. SWE-bench Verified score achieved in non-thinking mode. ↩︎ ↩︎