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Model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Kimi K2.6

DeepSeek against Moonshot AI, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Balanced · Open weights

vs

Moonshot AI

Kimi K2.6

Balanced · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationDeepSeek V4.1 FlashKimi K2.6
ProviderDeepSeekMoonshot AI
TierBalancedBalanced
Context windowWinner: 1M262K
Max output384KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$0.95
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $1.20$4
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters552B MoE (causal encoder-decoder; 8B active for input, 16B for output)1T total / 32B active (MoE, 384 experts)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestext, imagetext, image, video
LicenseMITModified MIT
API model iddeepseek-flashkimi-k2.6
ReleasedSeptember 10, 2026April 20, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)39.5Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified27
DeepSWE 1.1 [max] (2026-09-10)74.2Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 [max] (2026-09-10)90.6Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond [max] (2026-09-10)90.9Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

  • 2026-09-26
    Artificial Analysis

    Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.

    Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.

  • 2026-09-10
    DeepSeek V4.1-Flash release notes (vendor)

    Agentic software engineering: pass@1 on real repo tasks with reported cost per completed task.

    Directly comparable

Pricing tiers

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here.

Kimi K2.6: $0.95/$4.00 per MTok on the Moonshot API; cached input $0.16. No documented hard output cap; evals ran 98,304-token generations.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is DeepSeek's new default — an open-weight (MIT) multimodal MoE that DeepSeek says beats V4-Pro on performance, cost and speed.

Best for

  • Open-weight price-performance
  • High-volume hosted agents
  • Self-hosting with MIT weights

Watch out

Vendor benchmark claims are far ahead of its independent Artificial Analysis score (39.5 on v4.3.2); peak/off-peak billing means the hour you run matters.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Kimi K2.6

Kimi K2.6 is Moonshot's open-weight volume workhorse — a 1T MoE with native image/video input at 256K context, the base Kimi K2.7-Code and K3 build on.

Best for

  • Open-weight volume work
  • Multimodal input on a budget
  • Self-hosting at mid size

Watch out

256K context is small next to K3's 1M; video input is experimental (official API only). No documented hard output cap.

When the cheaper one wins

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper on output at $1.20 per million tokens against $4 for Kimi K2.6 — about 3.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Kimi K2.6

Common questions

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Kimi K2.6

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K2.6 cheaper for input?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $0.95 for Kimi K2.6 — roughly 3.2× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. Kimi K2.6 has tiered pricing: $0.95/$4.00 per MTok on the Moonshot API; cached input $0.16. No documented hard output cap; evals ran 98,304-token generations.
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K2.6 cheaper for output?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $1.20 per million output tokens, against $4 for Kimi K2.6 — roughly 3.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. Kimi K2.6 has tiered pricing: $0.95/$4.00 per MTok on the Moonshot API; cached input $0.16. No documented hard output cap; evals ran 98,304-token generations.
Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K2.6?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash accepts 1M tokens against 262K for Kimi K2.6. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Should I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Kimi K2.6?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash suits open-weight price-performance; Kimi K2.6 suits open-weight volume work.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $0.95 for Kimi K2.6 — a 3.2x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash takes 1M against 262K for Kimi K2.6 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Measured capability: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 39.5 to 27 (measured 2026-09-26).
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