Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Kimi K2.6
Claude Haiku 4.5 (2025) and Kimi K2.6 (2026) are agentic coding models from Anthropic and Moonshot AI. Claude Haiku 4.5 ships a 200k-token context window, while Kimi K2.6 ships a 262K-token context window. On SWE-bench Verified, Kimi K2.6 leads by 6.9 pts. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit. It focuses on practical selection signals rather than broad model-family marketing.
Kimi K2.6 is safer overall; choose Claude Haiku 4.5 when coding workflow support matters.
Specs
| Released | 2025-10-01 | 2026-04-13 |
| Context window | 200k | 262K |
| Parameters | — | 1T (MoE, 32B active) |
| Architecture | decoder only | Mixture of Experts (MoE) |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2025-02 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Kimi K2.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.8/1M tokens | - |
| Output price | $4/1M tokens | - |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Kimi K2.6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Haiku 4.5 | Kimi K2.6 |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.3 | 80.2 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, SWE-bench Verified has Claude Haiku 4.5 at 73.3 and Kimi K2.6 at 80.2, with Kimi K2.6 ahead by 6.9 points. The largest visible gap is 6.9 points on SWE-bench Verified, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint differs most on reasoning mode: Kimi K2.6, tool use: Claude Haiku 4.5, structured outputs: Claude Haiku 4.5, and code execution: Claude Haiku 4.5. Both models share vision, multimodal input, and function calling, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
Pricing coverage is uneven: Claude Haiku 4.5 has $0.8/1M input tokens and Kimi K2.6 has no token price sourced yet. Provider availability is 8 tracked routes versus 2. Treat unknown pricing as an integration gap, then verify the route you will actually call before estimating production spend.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 when coding workflow support and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Kimi K2.6 when coding workflow support and larger context windows are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Kimi K2.6?
Kimi K2.6 supports 262K tokens, while Claude Haiku 4.5 supports 200k tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Is Claude Haiku 4.5 or Kimi K2.6 open source?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is listed under Proprietary. Kimi K2.6 is listed under Proprietary. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for vision, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Kimi K2.6?
Both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Kimi K2.6 expose vision. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface. Use this as a quick comparison signal, then confirm the provider-specific limits before committing to production.
Which is better for multimodal input, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Kimi K2.6?
Both Claude Haiku 4.5 and Kimi K2.6 expose multimodal input. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Which is better for reasoning mode, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Kimi K2.6?
Kimi K2.6 has the clearer documented reasoning mode signal in this comparison. If reasoning mode is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Where can I run Claude Haiku 4.5 and Kimi K2.6?
Claude Haiku 4.5 is available on Microsoft Foundry, Anthropic, Snowflake Cortex, AWS Bedrock, and GCP Vertex AI. Kimi K2.6 is available on NVIDIA NIM and Moonshot AI Kimi. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
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Last reviewed: 2026-04-27. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.