Kimi K1.5 vs Llama 4 Maverick Instruct: which model should you choose?
We compared Kimi K1.5 and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has the stronger average benchmark score; Kimi K1.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.
Kimi K1.5
Kimi K1.5 is a multimodal model from Moonshot AI. It offers a 128,000-token context window, costs $5.19 per million input tokens and $21.20 per million output tokens, and averages 80.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.19 / 1M
- Output
- $21.20 / 1M
- Context
- 128,000
- Avg score
- 80.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.33 per million input tokens and $23.04 per million output tokens, and averages 81.7 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.33 / 1M
- Output
- $23.04 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.7
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Kimi K1.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.19 | $5.33 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $21.20 | $23.04 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 4,096 | 16,384 | B |
| Average score | 80.7 | 81.7 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1432.2 | 1438.5 | B |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Kimi K1.5 wins 4, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 8, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.
| Benchmark | Kimi K1.5 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.7 | 84.6 | 1.9 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.4 | 79.5 | 5.1 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| SWE-bench Verified | 68.2 | 69.1 | 0.9 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| HumanEval | 87.1 | 85.0 | 2.1 | Kimi K1.5 |
| MATH-500 | 85.3 | 83.4 | 1.9 | Kimi K1.5 |
| AIME 2025 | 80.8 | 79.9 | 0.9 | Kimi K1.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.1 | 75.8 | 4.7 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| IFEval | 87.9 | 88.9 | 1.0 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| TruthfulQA | 84.7 | 84.0 | 0.7 | Kimi K1.5 |
| HellaSwag | 87.2 | 89.6 | 2.4 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| MMMU | 77.8 | 79.0 | 1.2 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
| Arena Elo | 1432.2 | 1438.5 | 6.3 | Llama 4 Maverick Instruct |
Price analysis
On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Kimi K1.5 costs about $9.19 per million tokens and Llama 4 Maverick Instruct costs about $9.76. Kimi K1.5 is roughly 6% cheaper than Llama 4 Maverick Instruct. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens, compared with 128,000 for Kimi K1.5. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.
Verdict
Across 12 shared benchmarks, Kimi K1.5 wins 4, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 8, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads Kimi K1.5 by 1.0 points (81.7 versus 80.7).
The price picture favours Kimi K1.5. The context picture favours Llama 4 Maverick 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 Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for quality-sensitive work and Kimi K1.5 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.
Choose Kimi K1.5 if
- Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick Instruct if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 16,384-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Kimi K1.5 better than Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct leads Kimi K1.5 by 1.0 points (81.7 versus 80.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Kimi K1.5 wins 4 benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick Instruct wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K1.5 or Llama 4 Maverick Instruct?
Kimi K1.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.19 per million tokens, versus $9.76 for Llama 4 Maverick Instruct.
Which has the larger context window?
Llama 4 Maverick Instruct has the larger context window at 200,000 tokens. Kimi K1.5 has 128,000 tokens.
Are these models open weights?
Kimi K1.5 is open weights; Llama 4 Maverick Instruct is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Llama 4 Maverick Instruct for quality-sensitive work and Kimi K1.5 for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.