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Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Kimi Linear

2 vs 0 benchmarks won

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.6
Moonshot AI
Kimi Linear
Overview
CompanyAnthropicMoonshot AI
Release dateFeb 17 2026Oct 2025
Model type
Open sourceNoYes
Specifications
Parameters
48B
Context window
Benchmarks
Science reasoning
GPQA Diamond
89.9%
Software engineering
SWE-Bench Verified
79.6%
Multimodal understanding
MMMU
Timeline
Release gapKimi Linear shipped 139 days before Claude Sonnet 4.6

Which is better: Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi Linear?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads Kimi Linear on 2 of the tracked benchmarks (GPQA Diamond, SWE-Bench Verified, MMMU). Kimi Linear shipped 139 days before Claude Sonnet 4.6, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.

Kimi Linear is an open-source / open-weight model; Claude Sonnet 4.6 is proprietary.

Direct benchmark comparisons are unavailable — at least one of these models has not published scores on GPQA Diamond, SWE-Bench Verified, or MMMU.

Frequently asked questions

When was Claude Sonnet 4.6 released?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 was released by Anthropic on Feb 17 2026.
When was Kimi Linear released?
Kimi Linear was released by Moonshot AI on Oct 2025.
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 or Kimi Linear open source?
Kimi Linear is an open-source / open-weight model released by Moonshot AI. Claude Sonnet 4.6 is a proprietary model released by Anthropic.

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