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Mistral Small 3.1 vs Kimi K2.6

Mistral Mistral Small 3.1 vs Moonshot AI Kimi K2.6 — side-by-side specs.

Mistral
Mistral Small 3.1
Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.6
Overview
CompanyMistralMoonshot AI
Release dateMar 17 2025Apr 21 2026
Model type
Open sourceYesNo
Specifications
Parameters
Context window
Benchmarks
Science reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Software engineering
SWE-Bench Verified
Multimodal understanding
MMMU
Timeline
Release gapMistral Small 3.1 shipped 400 days before Kimi K2.6

Which is better: Mistral Small 3.1 or Kimi K2.6?

Mistral Small 3.1 and Kimi K2.6 do not have directly comparable benchmark scores published on GPQA Diamond, SWE-Bench Verified, or MMMU. Mistral Small 3.1 shipped 400 days before Kimi K2.6, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.

Mistral Small 3.1 is an open-source / open-weight model; Kimi K2.6 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 Mistral Small 3.1 released?
Mistral Small 3.1 was released by Mistral on Mar 17 2025.
When was Kimi K2.6 released?
Kimi K2.6 was released by Moonshot AI on Apr 21 2026.
Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Kimi K2.6 open source?
Mistral Small 3.1 is an open-source / open-weight model released by Mistral. Kimi K2.6 is a proprietary model released by Moonshot AI.

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