← comparisons · head to head
Claude Opus 5 vs Kimi K3
Claude Opus 5 scores higher than Kimi K3 on all 6 public leaderboards that rate both. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Claude Opus 5 is at 84.8 and Kimi K3 at 60.4 (out of 100).
Scores as published by each board; table composed September 24, 2026.
Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | Claude Opus 5 | Kimi K3 | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,692.4 | 1,659.6 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LiveBench global average (0-100) | 80.1 | 79.2 | Claude Opus 5 |
| SimpleBench AVG@5 % (private set) | 80.6 | 60.7 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LLM Stats LLM Stats Score · composite (0-100), their rendered top 15 | 54.8 | 52.5 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Vals AI Vals Index accuracy % · weighted finance + coding tasks | 67.2 | 57.8 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Artificial Analysis intelligence index · measured runs only | 50.8 | 43.6 | Claude Opus 5 |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
Claude Opus 5 at a glance
- Developer
- Anthropic
- Status
- Live since July 24, 2026
Live — detected 16:51 UTC Jul 24, alert fired 61s later · superseded by Opus 5.5 on Sep 22 and moved to Anthropic's legacy list; still served at $5/$25, which is now MORE than its successor.
Claude Opus 5 is live — we detected it at 16:51 UTC and had alerts out 61 seconds later
2026-07-24 · Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 went live on the public API today. Our checkers saw the id appear at 16:51:33 UTC, confirmed it on the next 60-second sweep, and the alert blast went out at 16:52:34 — sixty-one seconds from first sighting to inbox.
Kimi K3 at a glance
- Developer
- Moonshot
- Status
- Live since July 15, 2026
Live — dropped Jul 15 · 2.8T · open weights landed Jul 28 (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.
Claude Opus 5 vs Kimi K3: quick answers
Which is better, Claude Opus 5 or Kimi K3?
It depends on what you measure. Claude Opus 5 scores higher than Kimi K3 on all 6 public leaderboards that rate both. Claude Opus 5's widest lead is on SimpleBench. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, Claude Opus 5 is at 84.8 and Kimi K3 at 60.4 (out of 100).
Which is newer, Claude Opus 5 or Kimi K3?
Claude Opus 5. It went live on July 24, 2026, 9 days after Kimi K3 (July 15, 2026).
Who makes Claude Opus 5 and Kimi K3?
Claude Opus 5 is from Anthropic; Kimi K3 is from Moonshot.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed September 24, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
More comparisons
Watch free: Chrome push the moment a new model answers on a public API, an email about 15 minutes later. Also: the bench index · the wire