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Kimi K3 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher than Kimi K3 on all 5 public leaderboards that rate both. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Kimi K3 is at 37 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at 60.6 (out of 100).
Scores as published by each board; table composed November 12, 2026.
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Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | Kimi K3 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,657.9 | 1,663.6 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| LiveBench global average (0-100) | 65 | 70.3 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| SimpleBench AVG@5 % (private set) | 60.7 | 66.7 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| Vals AI Vals Index accuracy % · weighted finance + coding tasks | 53 | 61.3 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| Epoch AI Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI) · many benchmarks on one scale | 158.6 | 159.4 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
For coding
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, Kimi K3 is at 65.3 (#16 of 47) and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at 71.4 (#11). Kimi K3 scores higher on 1 of the 3 coding boards that rate both and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash on 2.
| Coding board | Kimi K3 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena · Coding | 1,505.5 | 1,503.4 |
| LiveBench · Coding | 53.1 | 80.4 |
| Vals Vibe Code Bench | 85 | 87.7 |
Kimi K3 at a glance
- Developer
- Moonshot
- Status
- Live since July 15, 2026
- API price
- $3 input / $15 output per 1M tokens · Moonshot AI, kimi-k3
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Live — dropped Jul 15 · 2.8T · open weights landed Jul 27 (1.56 TB, MXFP4).
Kimi K3, day one: impressive, expensive, and a little slow
2026-07-16 · Kimi K3 has been live for a day, and the picture forming is more interesting than the launch-night hype. Here's everything we're seeing so far.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at a glance
- Developer
- DeepSeek
- Status
- Live since September 10, 2026
Live — Sep 10 · 1M ctx · $0.15/$0.60 per 1M as our sweep read it, which is DeepSeek's off-peak rate (peak hours on weekdays cost double, $0.30/$1.20, per its pricing page) · DeepSeek serves it under the unversioned id deepseek-flash, so the id itself never carries the version · Oct 17: upgraded in place to the 1017 checkpoint (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017, per DeepSeek's changelog), same deepseek-flash id and price, web and app updated too; open weights on Hugging Face as deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 (MIT, same config.json as the Sep 10 weights); OpenRouter lists it as deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017 at $0.15/$0.60, 1M ctx, 384K max output · Oct 19: the Vals Index (updated Oct 18) scores the 1017 build 56.58%, #14 of 50 and the top open-weight model there, up from 51.32% for the Sep 10 build; $0.64 per test on Vals' run, against $0.33 for the Sep 10 build · Oct 19: DHS ordered DeepSeek products, and third-party products built on DeepSeek, excluded from and removed from US federal civilian agencies (Federal Register 2026-21447, publishing Oct 20) · Oct 20: DeepSeek open-sourced DeepInfer (Apache-2.0), the inference engine it serves V4.1 Flash with, for NVIDIA SM100 GPUs and Huawei Ascend 950 NPUs · Oct 20: Vals says the 1017 build completed 16.3 of 21 objectives on its coming offensive-cybersecurity benchmark, against 15.7 for GPT-6 Sol, on several times the tokens (a first finding; the full evaluation is due in the coming weeks).
Vals: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash beat GPT-6 Sol on its offensive cybersecurity task, using about five times the tokens
2026-10-20 · Vals AI says DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, an open-weight model, completed more objectives than OpenAI's GPT-6 Sol on a multi-step offensive cybersecurity task built on simulated corporate networks.
DeepSeek open-sources DeepInfer, the engine behind V4.1 Flash, built for NVIDIA Blackwell and Huawei Ascend 950
2026-10-20 · DeepSeek released DeepInfer, the inference framework it says serves DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash at scale, as open source on October 20 under the Apache 2.0 license.
Kimi K3 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: quick answers
Which is better, Kimi K3 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash?
It depends on what you measure. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash scores higher than Kimi K3 on all 5 public leaderboards that rate both. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash's widest lead is on Vals AI. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Kimi K3 is at 37 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at 60.6 (out of 100).
Which is newer, Kimi K3 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. It went live on September 10, 2026, 57 days after Kimi K3 (July 15, 2026).
How do Kimi K3 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash compare for coding?
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, Kimi K3 is at 65.3 (#16 of 47) and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash at 71.4 (#11). Kimi K3 scores higher on 1 of the 3 coding boards that rate both and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash on 2.
Who makes Kimi K3 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash?
Kimi K3 is from Moonshot; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is from DeepSeek.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed November 12, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
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