Kimi Linear vs o4-mini
Moonshot AI Kimi Linear | OpenAI o4-mini | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Company | Moonshot AI | OpenAI |
| Release date | Oct 2025 | Apr 16 2025 |
| Access | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Specifications | ||
Parameters | 48B | — |
| Benchmarks | ||
Nonsense detection BullshitBench v2Given a confidently-worded but nonsensical prompt, does the AI spot that it makes no sense and push back — instead of playing along and inventing an answer? The score is how often it clearly called out the nonsense. Higher is better. | — | 8% |
| Timeline | ||
| Release gap | o4-mini shipped 168 days before Kimi Linear | |
Which is better: Kimi Linear or o4-mini?
Kimi Linear and o4-mini don't publish scores on any of the same benchmarks, so there's no direct head-to-head comparison. o4-mini shipped 168 days before Kimi Linear, so benchmark comparisons should account for the intervening progress.
Kimi Linear is open weight, while o4-mini is proprietary.
Direct benchmark comparisons are unavailable — Kimi Linear and o4-mini don't publish scores on any of the same benchmarks.
Frequently asked questions
Kimi Linear was released by Moonshot AI on Oct 2025.
o4-mini was released by OpenAI on Apr 16 2025.
Kimi Linear is an open weight model released by Moonshot AI. o4-mini is a proprietary model released by OpenAI.
Other comparisons
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