Kimi K1.5 Instruct vs Llama 4 Maverick Chat: which model should you choose?
We compared Kimi K1.5 Instruct and Llama 4 Maverick Chat on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Kimi K1.5 Instruct has the stronger average benchmark score; Llama 4 Maverick Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Kimi K1.5 Instruct
Kimi K1.5 Instruct is a multimodal model from Moonshot AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.15 per million input tokens and $28.20 per million output tokens, and averages 80.5 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.15 / 1M
- Output
- $28.20 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 80.5
- Open weights
- Yes
Llama 4 Maverick Chat
Llama 4 Maverick Chat is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.09 per million input tokens and $23.20 per million output tokens, and averages 79.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.09 / 1M
- Output
- $23.20 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 79.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Kimi K1.5 Instruct | Llama 4 Maverick Chat | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.15 | $5.09 | B |
| Output price / 1M | $28.20 | $23.20 | B |
| Context window | 200,000 | 128,000 | A |
| Max output | 4,096 | 32,768 | B |
| Average score | 80.5 | 79.7 | A |
| Arena Elo | 1431.8 | 1419.9 | A |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Kimi K1.5 Instruct wins 9, Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 3, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Kimi K1.5 Instruct | Llama 4 Maverick Chat | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 83.0 | 80.5 | 2.5 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 77.4 | 73.0 | 4.4 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 67.8 | 66.6 | 1.2 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| HumanEval | 84.0 | 83.2 | 0.8 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| MATH-500 | 82.6 | 84.8 | 2.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| AIME 2025 | 80.4 | 78.9 | 1.5 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.1 | 76.3 | 5.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| IFEval | 86.2 | 87.4 | 1.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Chat |
| TruthfulQA | 84.3 | 81.5 | 2.8 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| HellaSwag | 90.2 | 88.8 | 1.4 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| MMMU | 78.6 | 75.4 | 3.2 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
| Arena Elo | 1431.8 | 1419.9 | 11.9 | Kimi K1.5 Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Kimi K1.5 Instruct costs about $10.91 per million tokens and Llama 4 Maverick Chat costs about $9.62. Llama 4 Maverick Chat is roughly 12% cheaper than Kimi K1.5 Instruct. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Kimi K1.5 Instruct has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Llama 4 Maverick Chat. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Kimi K1.5 Instruct wins 9, Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 3, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Kimi K1.5 Instruct leads Llama 4 Maverick Chat by 0.8 points (80.5 versus 79.7).
The price picture favours Llama 4 Maverick Chat. The context picture favours Kimi K1.5 Instruct. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.
If you need a single default, start with Kimi K1.5 Instruct for quality-sensitive work and Llama 4 Maverick Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Kimi K1.5 Instruct if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick Chat if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
- You need the larger 32,768-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Kimi K1.5 Instruct better than Llama 4 Maverick Chat?
On the index average, Kimi K1.5 Instruct leads Llama 4 Maverick Chat by 0.8 points (80.5 versus 79.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Kimi K1.5 Instruct wins 9 benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Chat wins 3.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K1.5 Instruct or Llama 4 Maverick Chat?
Llama 4 Maverick Chat is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.62 per million tokens, versus $10.91 for Kimi K1.5 Instruct.
Which has the larger context window?
Kimi K1.5 Instruct has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Llama 4 Maverick Chat has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Kimi K1.5 Instruct is open weights; Llama 4 Maverick Chat is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Kimi K1.5 Instruct for quality-sensitive work and Llama 4 Maverick Chat for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.