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Kimi K3 vs Yi Lightning

Compare Kimi K3 from Moonshot AI and Yi Lightning from Yi on key metrics including benchmarks, price, context length, and other model features. Access both models and hundreds of others through the AIHubMix API.

Moonshot AIKimi K3YiYi Lightning
Moonshot AI logo
Kimi K3
Moonshot AI · text, image, video → text

Kimi K3 is Kimi’s flagship model for long-horizon coding and end-to-end knowledge work, with a 1M-token context window and industry-leading intelligence.

Input$2.84 /M
Output$14.2 /M
Cache read$0.284 /M
Yi
Yi Lightning
Yi · → text

Input$0.2 /M
Output$0.2 /M

Pricing & Specifications

Prices are per million tokens. Time to First Token and throughput are rolling averages measured on AIHubMix.

Kimi K3
Yi Lightning
Input /M
$2.84
$0.2
Output /M
$14.2
$0.2
Cache read /M
$0.284
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Context length
1,048,576
0
Max output
1,048,576
0
Time to First Token
0.9 s
-
Throughput
83.4 tok/s
-
Modalities
textimagevideo
Supported Parameters
thinkingfunction callingstructured outputs
API Formats
Released
July 16, 2026
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Promotional prices show the discounted rate; see each model page for promotion windows.

Activity Past 30 Days

Daily traffic served through AIHubMix — how demand for each model is trending.

kimi-k3yi-lightning

Tokens / day

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Requests / day

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Performance Past 3 Days

Measured on real AIHubMix traffic, hourly buckets. Gaps mean no traffic in that hour.

kimi-k3yi-lightning

Throughput (tok/s)

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TTFT (s)

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Uptime (%)

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LMArena Benchmarks

LMArena ratings by capability (Bradley-Terry, commonly called Elo). Higher is better.

Text
kimi-k3yi-lightning
1280136014401520
Overall
13281486
Coding
13691531
Math
13061306
Hard prompts
13411505
Instruction following
13091479
Multi-turn
13311499
Creative writing
12971470
Longer query
13251502
Chinese
13621527
English
13541491

Source: LMArena (arena.ai) leaderboard, imported by AIHubMix. Models without published ratings are omitted per chart.

Cost calculator

Estimate your monthly bill for the same workload on each model.

Yi Lightning
$15.00 /mo
Kimi K3
$383 /mo

Monthly = daily × 30. Discounted rates applied where a promotion is active.

FAQ

Which is cheaper: Kimi K3, Yi Lightning?

Yi Lightning: $0.2/M output tokens; Kimi K3: $14.2/M. Use the cost calculator above to estimate your own workload.

How do their coding arena scores compare?

Kimi K3: 1531; Yi Lightning: 1369 (LMArena coding leaderboard).

Can I call Kimi K3 and Yi Lightning with the same API key?

Yes. AIHubMix serves every model on this page behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so switching between them is a one-line change to the model field — no second account, key or SDK.

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