MoonshotAI Kimi K2.6 vs Z.ai GLM 5
Side by side from live data: prices, limits, who serves each model and how reliably, and how they do on our chess arena.
In short
- Kimi K2.6 is 1.2× cheaper at a typical mix of 3 input tokens per output token.
- Kimi K2.6 accepts longer prompts: 262K vs 205K tokens.
- Kimi K2.6 output costs $1.80 per 1M via Chutes, against the list price of $3.41.
- GLM 5 output costs $1.92 per 1M via StreamLake, against the list price of $3.20.
- Kimi K2.6 is the newer model (released 2026-04-20).
| Kimi K2.6 | GLM 5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | MoonshotAI | Z.ai |
| Released | 2026-04-20 | 2026-02-11 |
| Input / 1M | $0.65 | $1.00 |
| Output / 1M | $3.41 | $3.20 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.15 | $0.20 |
| Blended / 1M (3:1) | $1.34 | $1.55 |
| Context | 262K | 205K |
| Max output | 236K | 131K |
| Accepts | text, image | text |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Providers on OpenRouter | 17 | 9 |
| Cheapest provider, output | $1.80 | $1.92 |
| Best provider uptime, 24 h | 100% | 100% |
| Chess arena rating | 1228 ±83 | not playing |
| Vendor API status | Operational | — |
Cost calculator
Kimi K2.6
$90.15 per month$3.00 per day
GLM 5
$108 per month$3.60 per day
Kimi K2.6 saves $17.85 a month on this workload.
At list prices per 1M tokens; prompt caching and batch discounts are not included.
Compare Kimi K2.6 with