GLM 5 vs Kimi K2.6
Z.ai · China | Moonshot AI · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick GLM 5 for agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows or complex systems design and backend reasoning. Pick Kimi K2.6 for open-weight agentic coding and long-horizon tasks or multi-agent swarms (scales to ~300 sub-agents). On a tight budget at scale, Kimi K2.6 is the value pick.
GLM 5 (Z.ai) and Kimi K2.6 (Moonshot AI) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. GLM 5 is z.ai's flagship open-weight (MIT) MoE foundation model, engineered for complex systems design and long-horizon agentic coding. Kimi K2.6 is moonshot's open-weight 1T-parameter (32B active) MoE model — frontier-class agentic coding you can download and self-host. They diverge most on price, context window and coding benchmarks — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences at a glance
- ▸Price: nearly identical — $1/$3.2 per 1M tokens vs $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens. Cost will not be the deciding factor here.
- ▸Context window: Kimi K2.6 holds 1.3× more — 256K (~393 pages) vs 200K (~300 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
- ▸Coding: Kimi K2.6 leads SWE-Bench Verified by 2.4 points (77.8% vs 80.2%) — a real edge on hard, real-world software tasks.
- ▸Recency: Kimi K2.6 is the newer model by about 2 months (released April 20, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | GLM 5 | Kimi K2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Z.ai (China) | Moonshot AI (China) |
| Released | February 12, 2026 | April 20, 2026 |
| Context window | 200K (~300 pages) | 256K (~393 pages) |
| Price (in/out) | $1/$3.2 per 1M tokens | $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens |
| Open weight? | Yes — self-hostable | Yes — self-hostable |
| Modalities | text, code | text, image, video, code |
| SWE-Bench Verified | 77.8% | 80.2% |
| MRCR v2 @ 1M | Not published | Not published |
Who wins what
Agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows
GLM 5
GLM 5 lists agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows among its strengths; Kimi K2.6 does not.
Complex systems design and backend reasoning
GLM 5
GLM 5 lists complex systems design and backend reasoning among its strengths; Kimi K2.6 does not.
Iterative self-correction on autonomous tasks
GLM 5
Kimi K2.6 is comparatively weak here — weaker on single-turn vision and grounded multimodal tasks
Open-weight agentic coding and long-horizon tasks
Kimi K2.6
It scores 80.2% on SWE-Bench Verified against GLM 5's 77.8% — a 2.4-point edge on real repository work.
Multi-agent swarms (scales to ~300 sub-agents)
Kimi K2.6
At $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens it undercuts GLM 5 ($1/$3.2 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.
Self-hosting and data-residency control
Kimi K2.6
Moonshot's open-weight 1T-parameter (32B active) MoE model — frontier-class agentic coding you can download and self-host — and it leads SWE-Bench Verified 80.2% to 77.8%.
Lowest cost at scale
Kimi K2.6
At $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Largest single-prompt input
Kimi K2.6
Its 256K window is about 1.3× larger than GLM 5's 200K, fitting roughly 393 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ Kimi K2.6
At $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens it undercuts GLM 5, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases
→ Kimi K2.6
Larger 256K window fits more in one prompt.
Anyone whose priority is agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows
→ GLM 5
It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is open-weight agentic coding and long-horizon tasks
→ Kimi K2.6
That is its strongest area.
GLM 5: where it fits
Z.ai's flagship open-weight (MIT) MoE foundation model, engineered for complex systems design and long-horizon agentic coding. Released February 12, 2026 by Z.ai, it is built for agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows, complex systems design and backend reasoning, iterative self-correction on autonomous tasks, and open weights under the permissive MIT license.
Its trade-offs are real: 200K context trails 1M-context rivals, and quickly superseded by GLM-5.1 and GLM-5.2. At $1 in / $3.2 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Kimi K2.6: where it fits
Moonshot's open-weight 1T-parameter (32B active) MoE model — frontier-class agentic coding you can download and self-host. Released April 20, 2026 by Moonshot AI, it is built for open-weight agentic coding and long-horizon tasks, multi-agent swarms (scales to ~300 sub-agents), self-hosting and data-residency control, and strong price-to-performance across many API providers.
Its trade-offs: 256K context trails the 1M Claude and Gemini flagships, weaker on single-turn vision and grounded multimodal tasks, and chinese-jurisdiction data and newer vendor track record. At $0.95 in / $4 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
GLM 5 and Kimi K2.6 overlap enough that the right pick depends on your specific job. Kimi K2.6 costs less per token; Kimi K2.6 holds the larger context; and each leads in its own area — GLM 5 for agentic planning and long-horizon coding workflows, Kimi K2.6 for open-weight agentic coding and long-horizon tasks. Rather than crowning one, run the same hard task through both once and let the results decide.
Want both GLM 5 and Kimi K2.6 without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.
See pricingFrequently asked questions
Is GLM 5 or Kimi K2.6 better for coding?
On SWE-Bench Verified, GLM 5 scores 77.8% and Kimi K2.6 scores 80.2% — Kimi K2.6 has the measurable edge.
Which is cheaper, GLM 5 or Kimi K2.6?
Kimi K2.6 is cheaper — $1/$3.2 per 1M tokens vs $0.95/$4 per 1M tokens, roughly 1.1× apart on input.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K2.6 — 256K vs 200K, about 1.3× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both GLM 5 and Kimi K2.6 together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GLM 5, Kimi K2.6 and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, GLM 5 or Kimi K2.6?
Kimi K2.6 — released April 20, 2026, about 2 months after GLM 5.
Related comparisons
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.