Kimi K1.5 vs Llama 4 Maverick: which model should you choose?
We compared Kimi K1.5 and Llama 4 Maverick on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. Llama 4 Maverick 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
Llama 4 Maverick is a multimodal model from Meta AI. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $5.36 per million input tokens and $25.19 per million output tokens, and averages 81.6 across the index's benchmark suite.
- Input
- $5.36 / 1M
- Output
- $25.19 / 1M
- Context
- 200,000
- Avg score
- 81.6
- Open weights
- Yes
Specification comparison
| Spec | Kimi K1.5 | Llama 4 Maverick | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input price / 1M | $5.19 | $5.36 | A |
| Output price / 1M | $21.20 | $25.19 | A |
| Context window | 128,000 | 200,000 | B |
| Max output | 4,096 | 8,192 | B |
| Average score | 80.7 | 81.6 | B |
| Arena Elo | 1432.2 | 1447.0 | B |
| Open weights | Yes | Yes | Tie |
Benchmark comparison
Kimi K1.5 wins 4, Llama 4 Maverick 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 | Gap | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro | 82.7 | 84.7 | 2.0 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| GPQA Diamond | 74.4 | 76.8 | 2.4 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| SWE-bench Verified | 68.2 | 71.8 | 3.6 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| HumanEval | 87.1 | 87.3 | 0.2 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| MATH-500 | 85.3 | 82.7 | 2.6 | Kimi K1.5 |
| AIME 2025 | 80.8 | 79.6 | 1.2 | Kimi K1.5 |
| LiveCodeBench | 71.1 | 75.7 | 4.6 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| IFEval | 87.9 | 87.5 | 0.4 | Kimi K1.5 |
| TruthfulQA | 84.7 | 82.6 | 2.1 | Kimi K1.5 |
| HellaSwag | 87.2 | 88.2 | 1.0 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| MMMU | 77.8 | 80.4 | 2.6 | Llama 4 Maverick |
| Arena Elo | 1432.2 | 1447.0 | 14.8 | Llama 4 Maverick |
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 costs about $10.32. Kimi K1.5 is roughly 11% cheaper than Llama 4 Maverick. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.
Llama 4 Maverick 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 wins 8, and 0 are tied. On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick leads Kimi K1.5 by 0.9 points (81.6 versus 80.7).
The price picture favours Kimi K1.5. The context picture favours Llama 4 Maverick. 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 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 if
- You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
- You need the larger 200,000-token context window.
- You need the larger 8,192-token output limit.
FAQ
Is Kimi K1.5 better than Llama 4 Maverick?
On the index average, Llama 4 Maverick leads Kimi K1.5 by 0.9 points (81.6 versus 80.7). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Kimi K1.5 wins 4 benchmarks, Llama 4 Maverick wins 8.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K1.5 or Llama 4 Maverick?
Kimi K1.5 is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $9.19 per million tokens, versus $10.32 for Llama 4 Maverick.
Which has the larger context window?
Llama 4 Maverick 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 is open weights.
Which should I choose for production?
If you need a single default, start with Llama 4 Maverick 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.