Kimi K3 alternatives, graded
thecontinuitylayer.com/alternatives/kimi-k37 of the 11 open models on the record score higher than Kimi K3's 4½ of 7 (grade B−): MiMo-V2.6-Pro (6½, A), Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B (6½, A), Gemma 4 (6, A−) lead the ranking. Every grade is read from the maker's own page, checked 3 November 2026, never from a review.
Every open model on the record, ranked
Kimi K3’s own row is shaded. The five columns are the tests a person switching asks about first; each product page has every test, with the maker’s line and the source. Where the test is about training, no is the good answer and is colored as such.
| open model | Grade | License | Download | Runs locally | Hosted price | Training |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiMo-V2.6-Pro#1 · Xiaomi | A6½/7 | |||||
| Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B#2 · Microsoft | A6½/7 | |||||
| Gemma 4#3 · Google DeepMind | A−6/7 | |||||
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash#4 · DeepSeek | B+5½/7 | |||||
| Mistral Large 4#5 · Mistral AI | B5/7 | |||||
| gpt-oss-120b#6 · OpenAI | B5/7 | |||||
| NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning#7 · NVIDIA | B5/7 | |||||
| Kimi K3#8 · Moonshot AI · this one | B−4½/7 | |||||
| Qwen3.8#9 · Alibaba (Qwen) | B−4½/7 | |||||
| GLM-5.3#10 · Z.ai | C4/7 | |||||
| Muse Spark Open#11 · Meta | C−3½/7 | |||||
| Olmo 3.1 32B#12 · Ai2 (Allen Institute for AI) | C−3½/7 |
- License · Is it under an open license?
- Download · Can you download its weights?
- Runs locally · Does the maker say what it takes to run it on your own machine?
- Hosted price · Does the maker publish a price for its hosted it?
- Training · Does the maker train on your prompts when you use its hosted it?
Kimi K3 alternatives, by what matters
6 open models under an open license
- A MiMo-V2.6-Pro
- A Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B
- A− Gemma 4
- B+ DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- B gpt-oss-120b
- C− Olmo 3.1 32B
Kimi K3's grade on this test: partly.
10 open models whose weights download without a form
- A MiMo-V2.6-Pro
- A Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B
- A− Gemma 4
- B+ DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- B Mistral Large 4
- B gpt-oss-120b
- B NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
- B− Qwen3.8
- C GLM-5.3
- C− Olmo 3.1 32B
Kimi K3 passes this test too.
5 open models with a published hosted price
Kimi K3 passes this test too.
2 open models whose maker says hosted prompts are not used for training
Kimi K3's grade on this test: yes.
What Moonshot AI changed lately
The Kimi K2 series of models (K2.6 and K2.7 Code among them) is closed to newly registered API users from 31 October 2026, and Moonshot plans to retire every K2 model by the end of December 2026; Kimi K3 and K3.1 Pro take their place on the pricing page. Existing users keep access until retirement.
source
Alternatives to the others
- MiMo-V2.6-Pro alternatives
- Phi-4-reasoning-vision-15B alternatives
- Gemma 4 alternatives
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash alternatives
- Mistral Large 4 alternatives
- gpt-oss-120b alternatives
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning alternatives
- Qwen3.8 alternatives
- GLM-5.3 alternatives
- Muse Spark Open alternatives
- Olmo 3.1 32B alternatives
The whole shelf: Open models. How the grades are made: How we grade. No maker pays for a place or a grade.